I 


K/EODERN 


Battles  of  Trenton, 


History   of    New   Jersey's    Politics   and 

Legislation  from  the  Year   1868 

TO  THE  Year  1894. 


WILLIAM  EDGAR^ACKETT. 


TRENTON,  N.  J. : 

John  L.  Murphy,  Printer. 

1895. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1895,  by 

WILLIAM  E.  SACKETT, 
In  the  otKce  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


,■/£,, 
V',1 


TO   THE   THOUSANDS 

OF   MY 

PERSONAL   FRIENDS   IN   NEW   JERSEY 

WHOSE 

i>ARTIALITY   HAS   MADE   ITS   PUBLICATION   POSSIBLE, 

THIS   VOLUME 

IS  GRATEFULLY   INSCRIBED. 


3Si2957 


PREFACE. 


[p  HE  story  traced  in  these  pages  is  that  of  the  most  im- 
portant, interesting  and  eventful  quarter  century,  take 
it  all  in  all,  in  the  history  of  New  Jersey.  It  is  one 
view — only  my  view,  if  you  please — of  the  origin,  the 
rise  and  the  decay  of  a  political  dynasty,  so  to  speak.  Old  mas- 
ters pass  out  of  sight  in  the  earlier  chapters ;  the  new  masters  who 
forced  them  off  the  field  of  action  pass  out  of  sight  in  the  closing 
chapters.  It  was  not  the  purpose,  when  the  work  was  first  con- 
templated, to  present  the  rounded  story  of  an  era  in  politics  and 
legislation.  I  expected  merely  to  lay  before  the  reader  my 
rather  desultory  observations  of  the  spring  and  current  and 
movement  of  public  affairs  during  the  years  when  I  was  on 
hand  with  my  note-book — to  describe  events  and  chat  about  the 
men  who  shaped  them.  But  the  inexorable  tread  of  events  was 
fashioning  the  sequel  to  my  story  even  while  I  was  penning  it ; 
and,  without  anticipating  it,  I  find  myself  the  accidental  histo- 
rian of  an  Epoch — and  of  an  Epoch,  too,  of  more  than  passing 
interest  to  Jerseymen. 

Nor  alone  in  its  political  phases  is  the  quarter  century  epochal. 
It  is  the  story  of  an  epoch  in  development  and  progress  as  well. 
The  quarter  century  has  seen  disturbing  controversies  set  at  rest, 
and  the  relations  of  the  State  to  her  subjects  definitely  settled 
upon  lasting  lines.  It  has  seen  the  schools  made  free,  a  riparian 
policy  defined  and  enforced,  the  yoke  of  the  old  monopolies  that 
made  the  Commonwealth  a  by- word  in  the  mouth  of  the  nations 
thrown  off,  the  corporations  that  defied  her  sovereignty  brought 
within  the  reach  of  the  tax-gatherer,  her  system  of  legislation 
fundamentally  reconstructed,  great  public  buildings  reared — and 
great  things  begun  and  accomplished  in  all  directions. 

(5) 


6  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

The  labor  I  have  put  upon  the  pages  which  cover  the  story 
of  this  eventful  epoch  has  been  especially  grateful  to  me, 
because,  from  the  encouragement  the  public  men  of  New  Jersey 
gave  me  when  I  first  suggested  the  work,  I  feel  as  though  I  had 
been  especially  commissioned  by  them  to  tell  it  for  them.  I 
trust  that  I  have  discharged  the  commission  with  becoming 
candor  and  conscientiousness,  and  that,  now  that  the  fruit  of 
their  partiality  is  before  them,  they  will  see  no  reason  to  repent 
of  the  selection. 

It  is  but  just  that  I  should  add  that  in  the  work  I  have  thus 
undertaken  and  completed,  my  brother,  Clarence,  has  rendered 
me  valuable  assistance. 


CHAPTER   I. 

Which  is  in  the  Nature  of  an  Introduction,  and,  Though  Ancient 
History,  Should  be  Read  for  a  Full  Comprehen- 
sion OF  the  Chapters  Which  Follow. 


|i^  HERE  was,  it  is  needless  to  say,  a  period  in  the  history  of 
^  the  State  of  New  Jersey  when  her  territory  was  a  wil- 
derness. New  York  had  built  up  a  population  and  a 
promising  settlement  had  formed  at  Philadelphia,  before 
New  Jersey's  woodlands  were  invaded  by  the  axe  of  the  pioneer. 
Though  the  Commonwealth  lay  between  these  two  rapidly-grow- 
ing communities,  her  progress  and  development  were  noticeably 
slow ;  and  the  hope  of  assisting  her  growth  by  artificial  methods 
prompted  her  leading  men  to  tempt  enterprises  likely  to  aid  her, 
with  the  most  glittering  allurements  she  had  to  offer.  The  old- 
time  stage-coach,  with  its  changes  of  horses  and  drivers  at  the  end 
of  every  ten-mile  run,  that  spent  a  whole  day  in  making  the  dis- 
tance between  the  booming  municipalities  at  either  end  of  her, 
was  hailed  as  a  great  boon  by  the  pastoral  people  who  had  built 
their  cabins  upon  her  soil;  and  it  did,  indeed,  give  an  impulse  to 
settlement.  But  it  was  all  too  feeble  a  one ;  and  when  a  party  of  pro- 
gressive capitalists  talked  about  opening  up  her  territory  with  a 
railroad  crossing  her  from  the  Delaware  river  line  to  Rarifan  bay, 
and  running  a  new  machine  called  a  locomotive  over  it,  the  people 
went  wild  with  joy,  and  were  ready  to  encourage  them  by  any 
gifts  of  lands  or  franchises,  and  even  of  money,  they  saw  fit  to 
ask,  and  she  found  it  possible  to  give.  The  project  became  at 
once  the  almost  exclusive  topic  of  gossip  and  discussion  in  the 
taverns  and  at  town  meetings;  and,  when  the  Legislature  of  1830 
met,  it  was  everywhere  understood  that  nothing  the  State  could 
do  to  promote  it  was  to  be  withheld.  Before  the  session  had 
grown  many  weeks  old,  the  promoters  of  the  enterprise  were  in 


S  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

Trenton  consulting  with  the  legislators  about  the  terms  upon 
^hich  the  State  would  bargain  with  them,  and  when  the  Legis- 
lature adjourned  the  new  railroad  had  not  only  been  put  in  com- 
mission, but  had  made  its  own  terms  with  the  State  authorities. 

The  running  of  a  railroad  across  her  surface  was  at  that  time 
everything  but  a  remunerative  enterprise ;  it  was  doubtful,  in- 
deed, if  this  particular  enterprise  could  ever  be  made  to  pay, 
and  the  projectors  were  loath  to  undertake  it  unless  the  State 
would  guarantee  them  against  the  rivalry  of  other  capitalists 
who  might  be  inspired  by  its  success,  if  it  were  successful,  to 
establish  competing  lines.  And  so  the  company's  charter  con- 
ferred a  monopoly  of  all  the  service  between  New  York  and 
Philadelphia  upon  it ;  and,  because  the  imposition  of  the  tax 
upon  its  property  would  take  from  its  treasury  some  of  the 
money  needed  to  carry  the  enterprise  forward  to  success,  it  was 
exempted  from  a  large  part  of  the  public  burdens.  It  was  to 
pay  a  trifling  transit  duty  into  the  State  treasury — and  not  even 
that  till  it  had  become  a  dividend-earning  concern. 

The  point  from  which  these  enterprising  builders  proposed  to 
start  their  road  was  known  as  Camden — then  a  mere  name  given 
by  courtesy  to  a  railroad  shed.  The  point  to  which  they  pro- 
posed to  run  was  South  Amboy,  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the 
State ;  thus  the  new  venture  came  to  be  known  as  the  Camden 
and  Amboy  Railroad.  From  Amboy,  New  York  was  to  be 
reached  by  boat.  At  that  time  Perth  Amboy,  fronting  on  a 
broad  bay  that  aiforded  exceptional  harbor  facilities,  was  ex- 
pected to  outstrip  New  York  and  was  looked  upon  as  the  com- 
ing metropolis  of  the  country.  The  projectors  of  the  railroad 
would  have  made  this  promising  locality  their  terminal  but  for 
the  fact  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  bridge  Raritan  bay  at  a 
great  outlay  of  money;  and  so,  as  the  more  accessible,  South 
Amboy  was  chosen. 

The  company  was  immediately  organized,  and  a  few  years 
later,  what  is  now  claimed  to  be  the  first  locomotive  ever  used 
for  railroad  traffic  in  the  country,  was  put  upon  the  rails  at 
Bordentown.  During  the  Columbian  Exhibition  of  1893,  at 
Chicago,  this  primitive  contrivance  was  taken  out  of  the  shops 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


of  the  now  monster  corporation  on  the  Hackensack  meadows,  at 
Jersey  City,  and  furbished  up  for  exhibition.  Ambitious  to 
display  the  whole  train  as  she  had  been  equipped  for  her  first 
trip  from  Bordentown,  the  railroad  officials  sent  agents  all  over 
the  State  to  hunt  up  the  two  passenger  coaches  that  she  had 
drawn.  Among  the  rubbish  of  an  old  shop  up  in  Sussex,  one 
was  found ;  the  other,  minus  its  wheels,  was  doing  service  as  a 
hen-coop  at  one  of  the  old  towns  in  Middlesex.  They  were 
mounted  on  trucks,  and,  gay  with  flags  and  bunting,  were  sped 
behind  the  locomotive  across  the  country  to  Chicago.  It  was 
unique  and  a  curiosity,  and  the  train  was  hailed  by  great  throngs 
at  every  depot  past  which  she  rolled. 

To  return  from  this  digression,  the  charter  of  the  company 
which  resurrected  this  curiosity  of  its  primitive  days  for  the 
amusement  and  instruction  of  the  people  sixty- four  years  after 
it  had  instituted  the  system  of  locomotive  travel,  required  that 
the  construction  of  the  road  should  be  commenced  within  two 
years  and  completed  within  nine.  The  State  reserved  the  right 
till  January  1st,  1831,  to  subscribe  for  one-quarter  of  the  capital 
stock,  and  the  privilege,  for  three  years  at  the  expiration  of 
thirty  years,  of  taking  the  works  at  an  appraisement.  The  con- 
struction of  another  railroad,  with  terminals  within  three  miles 
of  its  termini,  was  to  free  the  company  from  the  payment  even 
of  its  transit  duties.  The  act  of  1831  made  this  monopoly  privi- 
lege even  more  stringent  by  enacting  that  no  other  railroad 
should  be  constructed  across  the  State  within  three  miles  of  its 
line  until  the  expiration  of  the  nine  years  limited  for  its  comple- 
tion. In  exchange  for  this  exclusive  privilege  the  railroad  com- 
pany gave  the  State  a  thousand  shares  of  its  stock,  with  divi- 
dends, but  with  the  understanding  that,  upon  the  construction, 
by  authority  of  the  State  or  of  the  United  States,  of  another 
railroad  between  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  the  shares  should 
be  given  back.  It  may  be  said  incidentally  that,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  the  State  has  since  chartered  many  railroads,  these 
shares  are  still  among  her  assets.  By  the  time  the  first  propo- 
sitions for  railroads  were  made,  the  shares  had  become  exception- 
ally valuable,  and  one  of  the  weapons  the  railroad  company  used 


10 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


for  the  perpetuation  of  its  monopoly  was  its  threat  to  force  their 
return  in  pursuance  of  the  arrangement  under  which  they  were 
taken ;  but  the  continued  possession  of  the  shares  by  the  State 
was  purchased  by  the  extension  of  other  privileges  to  the  rail- 
road company.* 

It  was  not  long  after  the  Camden  and  Amboy  monopoly  had 
been  established  by  the  State  before  an  equally-important  move- 
ment was  started  on  the 
water  front  at  Jersey 
City.  Jersey  City  was 
the  point  on  the  Jersey 
shore  that  was  most 
available  for  railroad  pur- 
poses, because  it  was  di- 
rectly opposite  the  heart 
of  the  metropolis.  At 
that  time  it  was  little 
more  than  a  neck  of  land 
projecting  into  the  water 
at  about  the  place  where 
the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road ferries  are  now 
located.  It  was  known 
as  Paulus  Hoeck,  and 
through  the  keen  foresight  of  Alexander  Hamilton  had,  away 
back  in  1804,  become  the  property  of  "The  Associates  of  the 
Jersey  Company."  From  an  interesting  history,  prepared  in 
1883  by  Mr.  Charles  B.  Thurston — for  over  twenty  years,  and 
even  at  the  time  of  this  writing,  Secretary  of  the  Associates — and 

*  It  was  thought  this  was  done  quite  as  much  for  the  purpose  of  assisting  the 
completion  of  the  roads  as  for  the  investment.  The  State  parted,  as  time 
went  along,  with  most  of  the  stock  that  thus  came  into  its  hands,  and  always 
derived  a  handsome  revenue  from  it;  but  General  Kobert  F.  Stockton,  son  of 
old  Commodore  Stockton,  and  who  was  for  three  years  Comptroller  of  the 
State,  is  authority  for  the  statement  that  if  the  State  treasury  had  held  all  of 
the  stock  which  it  has  from  time  to  time  exchanged  for  franchises  to  railroads 
the  dividend  from  the  stock  would  by  this  time  have  paid  all  the  expenses  of 
the  State  government. 


Charles  B.  Thurston. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  11 


designed  to  show  the  title  of  the  Associates  to  the  shore  front, 
the  story  of  the  absorption  of  the  valuable  water  privileges  at 
that  point  is  gleaned.* 

The  extreme  eastern  point  of  the  upland  at  that  time  was  about 
where  Warren  street  runs  now — the  filling  in  since  done  by  the 
railroad  has  extended  the  solid  ground  1,500  to  2,000  feet  into 
the  Hudson  river.  Above  Paulus  Hoeck  and  below  it  the  shore 
was  escalloped  by  deep  coves — that  on  the  north  known  as 
Aharsimus,  a  name  which  the  Indians  had  given  to  it,  and  since 
corrupted  into  Harsimus ;  that  on  the  south,  called  the  South 
Cove.  The  jut  of  land  was  the  property  of  Cornelius  Van  Vorst, 
Anthony  Dye,  Richard  Varick  and  Richard  Radcliffe.  With 
his  wonderful  business  eye  Hamilton  saw  the  commercial  future 
of  their  holdings,  and  he  framed  the  bill  incorporating  the  Asso- 
ciates of  the  Jersey  Company  for  its  purchase.  Notable  names 
were  among  those  of  these  Associates.  Old  Governor  Penning- 
ton, Judge  Aaron  Ogden,  Isaac  H.  Williamson,  whose  son  Benja- 
min was  afterwards  one  of  the  famous  Chancellors  of  the  State ; 
General  Cummings,  of  Newark,  and  Israel  Condit,  of  Newark, 
were  some  of  them.  By  their  charter  the  Associates  were  given 
the  privilege  of  owning  not  only  the  upland  but  the  land  under 
water  beyond  it,  and  of  improving  it. 

It  was  Hamilton's  idea  that  the  particular  value  of  this  acqui- 
sition lay  in  its  availability  for  ferriage  purposes;  and,  so  that  the 
Associates  might  enjoy  an  absolute  and  undisputed  monopoly  of 
transportation  across  the  river  from  that  point  forever,  he  pre- 
pared a  form  for  their  use  in  the  sale  of  their  acquired  upland 
which  reserved  to  the  Associates  always  the  enjoyment  of  the  ferry 
privileges.  Every  deed  given  by  them  to  purchasers  of  any  part 
of  the  land  expressly  forbids  the  uee  of  it  by  the  purchasers  for 
ferry  purposes.  By  this  far-seeing  precaution  the  famous  Secre- 
tary secured  to  the  Associates  for  all  time  an  exclusive  monopoly 
of  the  right  to  use  the  shore  front  for  the  transportation  of  pas- 
sengers from  Jersey  City  at  any  point  between  Harsimus  and 

*  Those  who  are  interested  in  more  than  is  here  taken  from  Mr.  Thurston's 
narrative,  will  find  the  whole  narrative  reproduced  in  an  appendix  at  the  end 
of  this  book. 


12  MODERN   BA.TTLE8  OF  TRENTON. 

the  South  Cove.  A  tavern  keeper  on  the  water  front  established 
a  sort  of  a  ferry  between  the  Hoeck  and  New  York,  and  paid 
rental  to  the  Associates  for  many  years  before  the  value  of  it  for 
the  larger  purposes  of  commerce  developed. 

At  about  the  time  that  the  Camden  and  Amboy  began  its  strug- 
gle to  establish  communication  between  New  York  and  Philadel- 
phia, Dudley  S.  Gregory  and  Russel  H.  Nevius  conceived  the  idea 
of  extending  a  railroad  line  from  the  inn-man's  ferry  westward  into 
the  State.  This  eventuated  in  the  organization  of  the  New  Jersey 
Railroad  and  Transportation  Company,  whose  route  was  by  stage 
over  Bergen  Hill  to  the  Hackensack  slope,  and  thence  by  train 
onward  to  New  Brunswick.  As  the  concern  grew  busy  and 
wealthy,  the  necessity  of  securing  control  of  the  ferry  privileges 
on  the  water  front  became  apparent.  The  one  way  of  accomplish- 
ing this  was  by  securing  a  controlling  interest  in  the  stock  of  the 
Jersey  Associates.  The  directory  of  the  Railroad  and  Transpor- 
tation Company  sent  out  its  agents  to  buy  blocks  of  stock  wherever 
they  could.  Mr.  Gregory  was  among  those  who  assisted  them, 
and  in  the  course  of  time  they  bad  secured  from  a  number  of 
the  Associates  a  sufficient  number  cf  the  shares — at  $430  per 
share — to  put  them  in  practical  possession  of  the  Associates'  ferry 
monopoly.  In  course  of  time  a  serpentine  roadbed  was  blasted 
through  Bergen  Hill ;  the  stage-coach  service  was  abandoned, 
and  trains  were  run  direct  to  the  water  front. 

The  attention  of  the  Camden  and  Amboy  was  soon  directed 
to  this  new  enterprise  by  two  circumstances.  The  New  Jersey 
Railroad  and  Transportation  Company  offered  a  more  direct 
communication  with  New  York  than  that  which  the  old  road 
had  established  at  South  Amboy.  The  new  road  was,  besides, 
coming  into  uncomfortable  competition  with  it  for  some  of  its 
traffic.  It  was  not  long  before  a  proposition  for  a  lease,  or  a 
consolidation,  or  a  merger,  was  sent  out,  and  eventually  the  new 
road  went  under  the  wing  of  the  older  company.  This  shrewd 
move  confirmed  the  Camden  and  Amboy  in  the  enjoyment  of  its 
transportation  monopoly  between  New  York  and  Philadelphia. 
By  acquiring  possession  of  all  the  water  front  available  for  ferry 
purposes  opposite  the  heart  of  the  metropolis,  it  was  enabled  to 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF  TRENTON.  13 

exclude  any  competing  line  from  reaching  New  York  as  directly; 
and  for  many  years  the  chief  struggle  between  it  and  lines  that 
sought  competition  with  it  was  due  to  their  efforts  to  break  its 
monopoly  at  this  point,  and  secure  a  foothold  near  its  own. 

About  the  time  the  New  Jersey  Railroad  and  Transportation 
Company  projected  its  line,  a  road  connecting  Trenton  and 
Philadelphia  was  laid  out  and  chartered,  and  this,  too,  entered 
into  traffic  arrangements  with  the  Camden  and  Amboy;  thus  the 
old  monopoly  came  into  control  of  a  continuous  line  direct  from 
New  York  to  Philadelphia — over  the  New  Jersey  Railroad  and 
Transportation  road  from  New  York  to  New  Brunswick,  over 
the  Camden  and  Amboy  from  New  Brunswick  to  Trenton,  and 
from  Trenton  over  the  Philadelphia  and  Trenton  Railroad  into 
Philadelphia.  The  three  linked  roads  came  to  be  known  as  the 
United  Railroad  Companies  of  New  Jersey,  and  Ashbel  Welch 
was  the  first  President  of  the  consolidated  concerns.  With  a 
closer  communication  between  the  two  big  cities  it  had  started  to 
serve,  the  Camden  and  Amboy  abandoned  its  depot  at  South 
Amboy  for  passenger  purposes,  and  carried  all  of  its  riders  to  the 
ferry  at  Jersey  City,  where  they  were  within  five  minutes'  sail 
of  New  York. 

The  establishment  of  this  through  route  was  regarded  as  so 
large  a  boom  to  the  prosperity  of  New  Jersey — so  important  a 
step  toward  the  development  of  its  resources — that  the  Legis- 
lature, in  authorizing  the  consolidation  of  the  three  companies 
under  the  title  of  the  New  Jersey  Railroad  and  Transportation 
Company,  agreed  to  absolutely  prohibit  the  construction  of  any 
competing  line  between  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  except 
with  their  consent ;  and  they  bound  themselves  to  see  that  the 
transit  duties,  which  they  paid  in  lieu  of  taxes,  and  the  divi- 
dends on  the  State's  shares  of  the  stock,  did  not  fall  below  the 
munificent  total  of  $30^000  per  year. 

It  was  many  years  before  either  the  Delaware,  Lackawanna 
and  Western  or  the  New  Jersey  Central  found  a  way  of  extend- 
ing their  lines  to  tide- water  at  the  metropolis,  and  during  that 
time  they  were  forced  to  enter  into  traffic  arrangements  with 
the  favored  company.     The  Jersey  Central,  which  had  estab- 


,14  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


lished  a  line  that  was  trying  to  make  its  way  to  P^aston,  Pa.,  fed 
into  the  road  of  the  New  Jereey  Railroad  and  Transportation 
Compiiny  at  l^Ii/aheth,  and  paid  toll  on  all  of  its  passengers  for 
the  privilege  of  riding  them  over  the  rails  of  the  New  Jersey 
Railroad  and  Transportation  Company  to  New  York  City;  but 
it  was  all  the  time  reaching  out  for  a  water  front  equal  to  that 
of  the  New  Jersey  Railroad  and  Transporlation  Company  at 
Jersey  City,  and  commanding  as  easy  access  to  New  York. 
Through  the  Jersey  Associates,  the  New  Jersey  Railroad  and 
Transportation  Company  had,  as  has  been  already  narrated, 
secured  possession  of  all  the  available  ferry  sites  on  the  Jersey 
City  shore,  and  if  a  contiguous  ferry  was  to  be  secured,  there 
was  no  way  to  get  it  except  by  making  the  ground.  John 
Taylor  .lohnston,  who  was  the  moving  spirit  in  the  New  Jersey 
Central  Railroad,  inspected  the  Mud  Flats,  with  their  shallow 
overlay  of  water,  in  the  South  Cove,  and  concluded  that  hun- 
dreds of  acres  might  be  redeemed  from  the  river  at  that  point 
by  solid  filling,  and  turned  into  the  mammoth  railroad  yard  his 
company  desired.  The  Cove  cut  deep  into  the  shore,  and  it  was 
easy  to  see  that  an  enormous  outlay  of  time  and  money  would 
be  requiretl  to  make  new  laud,  out  to  deep  water ;  but  he  and 
his  associates  undertook  it.  For  years  and  years  scow  loads  of 
the  foul  refuse  of  the  New  York  streets  were  dumped  upon  the 
Flats,  to  the  peril  of  the  health,  as  well  as  to  the  discomfort,  of 
the  residents  of  Jersey  City,  whose  homes,  invaded  by  the  odor, 
were  made  almost  uninhabitable.  In  the  face  of  all  their  pro- 
testa  he  persisted  with  the  work  till  the  land  began  to  show 
above  the  water ;  and  thousands  of  acres  stolen  from  the  river, 
and  added  to  the  area  of  Jersey  City,  gave  the  railroad  which 
he  managed  terminal  facilities  as  accessible  to  New  York  as 
those  the  Camden  and  Amboy  had  acquired. 

The  Morris  mid  Essex  likewise  found  it  impracticable  for 
many  years  after  it  had  been  incorporated  to  make  a  direct  com- 
munication with  the  roadbed  of  the  joint  companies,  and  the 
coaches  containing  its  passengers  for  New  York  were,  on  reach- 
ing Newark,  unhitched  from  its  locomotives  at  the  point  where 
ita  liroad  street  station  is  now  located,  drawn  by  horses  through 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  15 

Broad  street  to  Centre,  and  down  Centre  to  the  station  of  the 
New  Jersey  Railroad  and  Transportation  Company,  and  there 
attached  to  a  train  to  be  drawn  into  Jersey  City. 

The  Morris  and  P^ssex  Railroad  was  the  pet  project  of  Com- 
modore Stevens,  of  Hoboken.  The  Commodore  was  a  conspicu- 
ous figure  among  the  engineers  of  the  country,  and  before  his 
death,  earned  the  reputation  of  being  an  inventor  of  marked 
originality.  The  Stevens  Battery,  which  provoked  endless 
newspaper  talk  for  many  years,  was  the  work  of  his  hands  and 
reflected  much  genius,  though  at  the  end  it  proved  to  be  an 
elephant  on  his  hands.  He  was  the  founder  of  the  family 
of  Stevens  whose  baronial  estate  at  Castle  Point,  in  Hoboken, 
became  known  to  all  the  society  folks  of  this  section  of  the 
country.  In  its  earliest  history,  he  owned  the  larger  part  of 
the  territory  upon  which  the  city  of  Hoboken  has  since  been 
built,  and  he  was  looking  forward  to  the  time  when  it  would 
be  possible  to  bring  his  own  road  to  the  water  front  there. 

Bergen  Hill  towered  between  this  water  front  and  his  eastern 
terminus,  out  beyond  the  Hackensack  Meadows.  The  piercing 
or  crossing  of  this  height  presented  serious  engineering  difficul- 
ties that  the  Commodore  hesitated  to  solve.  But  he  had  it  in 
his  mind  to  attack  them  some  day,  and  in  the  hope  of  making 
his  road,  when  it  should  be  carried  to  the  water  front,  a  success- 
ful competitor,  he  was  bitterly  against  the  continued  extension 
of  monopoly  rights  to  the  Camden  and  Amboy  Company.  The 
Amboy  managers  found  in  him  a  foeman  worthy  of  their  steel, 
and  they  deemed  it  wise  to  placate  him.  The  result  was  the 
making  of  this  traffic  arrangement  that  carried  his  cars  from 
Newark  to  Jersey  City  over  the  Amboy  line,  and  an  under- 
standing that  when  he  should  be  ready  to  run  his  locomotives 
under  the  crest  of  Bergen  Heights,  the  Amboy  managers  would 
make  no  active  opposition. 

The  construction  of  a  tunnel  through  Bergen  Hill  was  under- 
taken some  years  later  by  a  party  of  capitalists  promoting  the  con- 
struction of  the  Erie  Railroad  ;  and  at  about  the  same  time  there 
was  friction  between  Commodore  Stevens  and  the  New  Jersey 
Railroad  and  Transportation  Company's  officials  concerning  the 
division  of  the  toll  money  taken  at  the  Jersey  City  ferry.     The 


16  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


Erie  tunnel  projectors  became  cramped  financially  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  their  enterprise,  and  applied  to  Commodore  Stevens  for 
aid.  He  made  the  loan  of  $107,000  needed  for  the  completion 
of  the  tunnel  on  the  engagement  that  his  road  should  also  use  it. 
When  daylight  was  finally  carried  through  the  hill,  he  withdrewr 
from  his  traffic  arrangement  with  the  New  Jersey  Railroad  and 
Transportation  Company,  and  for  years  his  road  and  the  Erie 
jointly  used  the  tunnel. 

Relations  between  these  two  new  allies  became  strained  in 
the  last  year  of  Governor  Randolph's  administration,  over  a 
six-foot  track,  which  had  been  substituted  for  one  of  the  four-and- 
a-half-foot  tracks  with  which  the  tunnel  was  fitted.  The  Morris 
road  insisted  upon  its  right  to  use  those  rails  as  well  as  the  other 
road,  and  the  Erie  resisted.  Determined  to  make  the  connec- 
tion, the  Morris  road  folks  sent  a  squad  of  laborers  one  night  to 
insert  a  "  frog,"  at  the  west  mouth  of  the  tunnel,  that  would 
admit  trains  from  their  road  to  the  disputed  rails.  One  of  the 
most  exciting  railroad  wars  in  the  late  history  of  the  State  was 
the  result.  "  Jim  "  Fisk,  the  ruling  genius  in  the  Erie  Rail- 
road, had  got  wind  of  the  movement,  and  when  the  Morris  and 
Essex  laborers  appeared  upon  the  scene  to  lay  the  "  frog  "  they 
found  their  work  blocked.  Erie  locomotives,  the  heaviest  of 
them,  had  been  steamed  up  to  the  point  of  attack,  and  lay  over 
the  very  spot  where  they  had  expected  to  work.  A  pitched 
battle  between  the  laborers  and  the  locomotive  hands  occurred 
during  the  night,  and,  the  train  hands  being  reinforced  by  great 
gangs  of  Erie  laborers,  a  serious  riot,  that  was  not  quelled  till 
Governor  Randolph  called  out  the  militia,  ensued.  The  Gover- 
nor himself  was  largely  interested  in  the  Morris  and  Essex  Rail- 
road ;  and  the  State  Guard,  with  their  rifles  and  a  cannon  or  two, 
kept  the  Erie  brigade  at  bay  until  the  "frog"  had  been  inserted. 
The  traffic  of  the  two  roads  increased  so  largely  as  time  went  on 
that  the  one  tunnel  was  not  enough  to  accommodate  them,  and 
soon  after  the  close  of  the  famous  "  frog  "  war  the  Morris  road 
people  made  a  sale  of  their  tunnel  rights  to  the  Erie,  and  blew  a 
tunnel  for  their  own  use  through  another  part  of  the  hill. 

What  has  been  written  shows  that  the  little  enterprise  of  the 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  17 

Camden  and  Amboy  Company,  which  the  State  so  carefully 
nursed  in  the  hope  that  it  might  be  successful  and  the  tear  that 
it  would  not  be,  grew  rapidly  to  prosperity  and  wealth.  Popu- 
lation followed  the  line  of  its  rails,  settlements  sprang  up  in 
the  wilderness  as  fast  as  locomotives  pushed  through  the  forests, 
and  its  whole  route  from  Philadelphia  to  New  York  became 
dotted  with  attractive  and  prosperous  towns. 

It  became  one  of  the  main  thoroughfares  of  traffic  between 
New  York  and  all  points  South  and  West,  and  grew  with  almost 
magical  speed  into  an  enormous  and  wealthy  corporation.  Its 
early  alliance  with  the  Legislature  of  the  State,  and  the  popular 
enthusiasm  with  which  its  coming  had  been  hailed,  and  the 
State's  habit  of  conceding  to  it,  for  the  purpose  of  increasing 
her  own  prosperity,  whatever  of  privilege  or  franchise  or 
exemption,  or  even  monopoly,  it  asked,  made  it  arrogant  and 
aggressive,  and  it  soon  came  to  be  recognized  as  the  power 
behind  the  throne  in  the  control  of  all  the  affairs  of  the  Com- 
monwealth. It  went  into  the  counties,  picked  out  its  own 
nominees  for  places  in  the  Senate  and  Assembly  and  secured 
their  election  to  the  seats  for  which  they  stood.  The  ambitious 
politician,  hopeful  for  public  honors,  had  first  to  make  his  peace 
with  this  rapidly-growing  monopoly  and  to  secure  its  favor  and 
consent  to  his  canvass.  Such  a  thing  as  a  candidate  announcing 
his  opposition  to  the  railroad  company  and  surviving  the  elec- 
tion was  almost  unheard  of  in  State  politics.  Once  in  a  while 
a  man,  permitted  to  reach  a  seat  on  the  assumption  that  he 
would  be  favorable  to  its  schemes,  would  show  a  disposition  to 
curb  its  greedy  reach  for  power.  With  its  rich  treasury  it 
brought  him  into  line  with  the  majority  of  his  fellows, 
and  never  failed  to  punish  him  for  his  temerity  by  defeating 
his  re-election  to  his  seat  at  the  next  poll.  The  legislation 
proposed  for  the  people  was  all  scrutinized  at  the  companies' 
ofiGces  in  Trenton  and  allowed  to  go  through  if  the  company 
was  favorable  or  indifferent,  but  its  disapproval  doomed  it  to 
certain  defeat.  It  selected  the  Governors  of  the  State,  picked 
out  the  men  who  were  to  go  to  Congress  and  named  the  United 
States  Senators.     So  absolute  was  its  control  of  all  departments 


18  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

of  the  State  government  that  the  State  itself  came  to  be  known 
derisively  among  the  people  of  other  States  as  the  State  of 
Camden  and  Amboy.  It  went  into  the  cities  and  towns  and 
controlled  Councils  and  Mayors  with  the  same  iron  hand.  It 
absorbed  property  of  great  value  everywhere,  and  taking  it  out 
of  the  ratables  increased  the  tax  burdens  of  the  community 
from  which  it  was  withdrawn.  There  never  was  a  more  com- 
plete master  anywhere  of  the  destinies  of  a  State  than  was  this 
monster  monopoly  of  the  affairs  of  New  Jersey.  Its  enterprise 
reached  out  in  a  thousand  different  directions,  and  there  came  a 
time  when  the  State  that  had  taken  the  corporation  to  its  bosom 
as  a  child  began  to  fear  it  as  a  master. 


CHAPTER  11. 

Which  Treats  of  the  First   Movements  to  Dislodge  the  Camden 

AND    Amboy    Monopoly,    and    Discloses    Incidentally    the 

Influence    the  Lease    of    the   Old   Lines  to    the 

Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  had  Upon 

THE    Progress  of  the   Battle  for  a 

Competing   Line. 


ip  HESE  introductory  explanations  are  made,  becauee,  all 
through  the  work  upon  which  I  am  now  engaged,  the 
railroads,  and  especially  the  Camden  and  Amboy  and  its 
successor,  the  Pennsylvania,  present  themselves  as  im- 
portant factors  in  the  control  of  State  affairs.  The  success  that  had 
attended  the  Camden  and  Amboy's  operation  naturally  enough 
roused  the  ambition  of  other  capitalists  for  like  enterprises,  and  as 
its  growth  was  due  almost  entirely  to  the  fact  that  it  controlled  the 
traffic  between  two  important  cities,  the  chief  aim  of  rival  operators 
was  to  make  a  line  parallel  with  it.  Because  it  had  acquired  quite 
as  advantageous  a  tide- water  terminal  at  Jersey  City,  just  south  of 
the  Joint  Companies'  terminal,  all  of  these  rival  organizations 
looked  to  the  Jersey  Central  Railroad  to  admit  them  to  New 
York.  The  Jersey  Central  had,  soon  after  reaching  its  water 
front,  attempted  to  establish  a  competing  line  by  the  extension 
of  its  New  Jersey  Southern  branch  out  through  Red  Bank  and 
Toms  River  towards  Philadelphia.  But  the  route  was  so  cir- 
cuitous and  the  time  of  travel  so  long  as  to  defeat  the  purpose 
its  projectors  had  in  view  in  building  it.  Senator  Torrey,  whose 
father,  John  Torrey,  was  its  most  enthusiastic  backer,  was 
especially  conspicuous  in  promoting  the  passage  of  its  charter 
under  the  name  originally  of  the  Raritan  and  Delaware  Bay 
Railroad.  Manchester,  down  in  the  Jersey  pines,  was  selected 
as  its  central  business  station,  and  the  establishment  of  its  car 
shops  there  built  the  town  into  quite  a  flourishing  community. 

(19) 


20  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

To  secure  the  means  of  prosecuting  the  enterprise,  Torrey  made 
a  loan  through  Brown  Brothers,  of  New  York,  with  the  Bank 
of  England  for  $450,000,  and  as  the  money  was  advanced  on 
woodland  that  was  of  scarcely  any  value  the  loan  became  famous 
in  the  history  of  financial  operations.  The  decadence  of  the 
railroad  robbed  Manchester  of  her  early  glory ;  the  shops  were 
closed  and  the  homts  deserted,  and  a  foreclosure  to  force  the 
settlement  of  the  mortgage  finally  became  necessary.  The  heirs 
of  the  Torrey  estate  bought  in  the  property,  however,  to  protect 
the  titles  of  those  who  still  made  their  homes  in  the  town. 

It  became  apparent,  immediately  after  the  Southern  Railroad 
had  entered  upon  business,  that  it  would  never  answer  for  a 
competing  line;  and  larger  hopes  were  built  upon  the  possibility 
of  extending  the  Central  Company's  main  line  onward  to  the 
Quaker  City.  Till  Somerville  was  reached  the  main  line 
pointed  straight  at  Philadelphia  and  there  it  veered  westward 
toward  Easton.  It  succeeded  in  pushing  its  way  Philadelphia- 
ward  as  far  as  Bound  Brook  and  there  its  progress  was  blocked. 
From  the  other  direction,  a  corporation  known  at  that  time 
variously  as  the  National  Line,  and  the  Air  Line,  but  sub- 
sequently absorbed  into  what  is  now  known  as  the  Reading 
Railroad,  had  extended  its  line  northward  from  Philadelphia  to 
a  point  on  the  Pennsylvania  side  of  the  Delaware  river  about 
opposite  Trenton.  All  the  ambitious  projectors  of  rival  roads 
saw  that  the  linking  of  these  two  roads  by  a  little  spur  extend- 
ing from  Trenton  to  Bound  Brook  would  complete  the  much- 
sought  through  route  between  the  two  important  cities  that  fed 
the  Camden  and  Amboy.  For  four  or  five  years  the  State  was 
torn  by  the  dissensions  between  the  Camden  and  Amboy  owners 
and  these  rival  promoters  for  a  franchise  that  would  authorize 
the  laying  of  rails  over  this  disputed  territory,  and  the  little 
section  of  the  State  that  lay  between  the  Bound  Brook  end  of 
the  Central  and  the  Trenton  end  of  the  Air  Line  became  famed 
all  over  the  country  as  a  battle-ground  of  the  railroad  giants. 
At  each  session  of  the  Legislature,  for  years,  the  promoters  of 
the  rival  lines  urged  their  claims  upon  the  Senators  and  Assem- 
blymen, and  the  Camden  and  Amboy  monopolists  sent  them 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  21 

home  as  often  with  a  good  deal  more  experience  but  a  good  deal 
less  money  than  they  had  started  out  with. 

They  succeeded  in  making  much  of  public  talk  about  the 
closeness  of  the  relations  that  existed  between  the  Camden  and 
Amboy  and  the  State,  however ;  and  the  newspapers  felt  that 
they  were  scoring  a  great  point  against  the  Camden  and  Am- 
boy's  domination  when  they  described  the  system  of  transit 
duties  which  it  paid  into  the  State  Treasury  in  lieu  of  taxes, 
as  a  tax  upon  the  passengers  and  declared  that  whatever  the 
Camden  and  Amboy  contributed  toward  the  support  of  the  State 
was  taken  out  of  the  pockets  of  its  New  York  and  Phila- 
delphia patrons.  The  transit  duty  system  was  easily  made  un- 
popular in  New  York  and  Philadelphia  by  its  presentation 
in  this  light,  and  in  1869  Governor  Randolph  sent  a  special 
message  to  the  Legislature  in  which  he  advised  the  substitution 
of  another  and  better  system  for  it. 

"  Provision  should  be  made,"  he  wrote,  "  for  the  establish- 
ment of  a  just  and  uniform  rate  of  taxation  upon  all  railroad 
and  canal  companies,  subject  to  such  changes  in  the  rate  as  the 
Legislature  may  direct.  *  *  *  I  am  convinced  that  the  present 
mode  of  obtaining  revenue  is  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  of  our 
people,  the  more  enlightened  and  just  modes  of  taxation  experience 
has  developed,  and  unequal,  also,  in  its  operations  upon  our  citi- 
zens. The  operation  of  the  system,  too,  is  either  persistently 
misunderstood  or  willfully  misrepresented  by  the  citizens  of  other 
States." 

As  a  result  of  these  recommendations,  a  bill  was  introduced 
into  the  Houses,  and  whipped  through  both  of  them  in  a 
single  day,  imposing  a  tax  of  one-half  of  one  per  cent,  upon  the 
cost  of  the  Camden  and  Amboy  Railroad,  "  till  such  time  as  a 
law  imposing  a  general  railroad  tax  should  be  passed." 

The  Legislature  of  1870  saw  an  attempt  made  to  connect  the 
National  line  with  the  Central,  by  the  introduction  into  both 
Houses  at  the  same  time  of  a  bill  granting  a  franchise  for  a  road 
between  Millstone  and  Trenton.  Tracks  between  these  two 
points  would  have  completed  the  Philadelphia  and  New  York 
connection,  but  the  act  authorizing  their  laying  was  presented  to 


22  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

the  members  as  for  the  construction  of  merely  a  little  local  road. 
Assemblyman  Clark,  who  was  evidently  a  Camden  and  Amboy 
spokesman  on  the  floor,  made  announcement  of  its  larger  scope 
when  he  described  it  as  designed  to  secure  a  continuous  road 
from  Philadelphia  to  New  York,  "  for  a  corporation  chartered 
by  Pennsylvania  in  which  the  State  of  New  Jersey  had  no  par- 
ticular interest."  After  it  had  been  defeated  by  an  adverse  report 
in  the  Assembly,  Assemblyman  Winton,  of  Bergen,  backed  by 
Bevans,  of  Hudson,  attempted  to  secure  a  reconsideration ;  but 
Leon  Abbett,  who  was  Speaker  of  the  House  at  the  time,  stepped 
down  from  the  dais  and  opposed  the  reconsideration  on  the  ground 
that  "  the  idea  underlying  it  was  a  train  flying  across  New  Jersey 
from  New  York  to  Philadelphia  in  one  hour  and  fifty  minutes 
without  stopping  at  a  single  one  of  the  intervening  Jersey  towns 
or  villages,"  and  urged  this  local  objection  to  a  corporation  that 
proposed  to  use  the  State  only  for  a  convenience  with  such  fer- 
vor that  the  attempt  to  reconsider  failed  by  even  a  larger  vote 
than  that  which  had  sustained  the  adverse  report. 

The  companion  bill,  that  had  been  placed  on  the  Senate  files, 
was  met  there  by  the  introduction,  under  Camden  and  Amboy 
auspices,  as  a  foil,  of  a  bill  chartering  the  Mercer  and  Somerset 
Railway  Company  between  precisely  the  same  points.  Such 
well-known  Camden  and  Amboy  men  as  Ashbel  Welch,  Robert 
F.  Stockton,  John  G.  Stevens  and  A.  L.  Dennis  were  among  the 
incorporators ;  and  its  Camden  and  Amboy  origin  was  further 
revealed  by  the  clause  which  gave  to  the  Camden  and  Amboy 
stockholders  power  to  subscribe  to  the  stock.  The  special  allure- 
ment with  which  the  promoters  of  the  Millstone  and  Trenton 
Railway  bill  tried  to  tempt  the  State  into  granting  the  charter, 
was  the  offer  of  half  a  million  dollars  to  the  State  treasury  in 
exchange  for  it.  Senator  Little,  of  Monmouth,  who  thought 
that  the  State  of  New  Jersey  should  not  sell  these  franchises, 
aided  by  Senator  Taylor,  of  Essex,  who  thought  that  a  woman 
should  as  soon  sell  her  virtue,  attacked  this  particular  part  of 
the  bill,  and  had  it  stricken  out  of  it.  The  fate  of  the  measure 
was  sealed  from  that  day  onward  to  the  close  of  the  session.  Its 
promoters  realized  that  if  they  could  not  induce  the  State  to  give 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  23 

up  the  franchise  for  half  a  million,  they  certainly  could  not  per- 
suade her  to  make  the  gift  for  nothing,  and,  both  Houses  having 
thus  set  their  faces  against  it,  the  attempt  to  build  the  rival  road 
was  for  the  year  abandoned. 

Meanwhile  the  Camden  and  Amboy  control  had  undergone  a 
change  that  robbed  it  of  half  the  local  argument  with  which  it 
had  been  armed.  The  joint  companies  had  leased  all  their  lines 
to  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company,  a  corporation  whose 
directory  was  quite  as  full  of  foreigners  as  the  directory  of  any 
of  the  competing  roads  that  had  sought  to  use  the  soil  of  the 
State.  Jersey  Legislatures  had  excused  themselves  for  protect- 
ing the  Camden  and  Amboy  against  all  comers,  on  the  ground 
that  she  was  managed  by  Jerseymen,  and  devoted  to  the  promo- 
tion of  New  Jersey's  growth  while  these  outside  concerns  were 
the  projects  of  men  who  were  not  to  the  manor  born,  who  cared 
nothing  for  New  Jersey,  except  so  far  as  she  could  contribute  to 
the  comfort  of  travel  between  the  two  cities  outside  of  her,  and 
who,  as  Abbett  had  said  on  the  floor  of  the  Assembly  Chamber, 
did  not  propose  to  even  stop  their  trains  anywhere  within  her 
limits  for  the  accommodation  of  her  citizens.  The  argument, 
based  on  State  pride  and  State  development,  that  had  been  effective 
against  these  foreign  rivals  of  the  road  which  the  State  herself 
had  nursed  into  strength,  was  lost  the  moment  the  State's  own 
road,  as  it  were,  passed  out  of  the  hands  of  Jerseymen  into  a 
control  that  was  no  less  foreign.  It  was  even  urged  that  the 
arrogance  and  arbitrariness  of  the  foreign  concern  that  had  taken 
possession  of  the  Camden  and  Amboy  properties  should  be 
checked  and  punished  by  the  chartering  of  its  competitors  and 
the  impairment  of  its  business.  The  loss  of  popularity  among 
Jerseymen,  due  to  the  changed  status  of  the  joint  companies,  not 
only  encouraged  the  rival  lines  to  fight  with  the  more  vigor  for 
their  charters,  but  was  reflected  in  the  greater  difficulty  the  old 
monopoly  experienced  in  defeating  them.  Appeals  to  State  pride 
and  State  interest  were  vain,  and  the  corrupting  influence  of 
money  and  lobby  was  called  in  to  replace  them. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Which  Treats  of  the  Horseshoe  Assembly  District  Gerrymander, 

OF  Walsh's  Nomination  for  Governor  and  of  His  Defeat 

BY    Joel    Parker,  with  an   Incidental  Sketch  of 

the  Men  avho  Made  Up  the  State  House 

Autocracy  of  that  Day. 


IGHT  was  lost  of  these  absorbing  railroad  rivalries  in  the 
political  excitements  into  which  the  State  was  plunged 
when  they  seemed  about  to  reach  a  culmination.  The 
Legislature  of  1869  was  controlled  in  both  branches  by 
the  Democrats.  The  Federal  Government  was  preparing  to  make 
the  usual  decennial  count  of  the  people  in  the  nation  in  1870,  and 
it  was  to  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  Legislature  of  the  following  year, 
1871,  to  make  a  re-apportionment  of  Assemblymen  among  the 
counties  on  the  basis  of  the  State's  new  population  figures — that  is, 
the  Constitution  devolved  upon  it  the  function  of  fixing  the  num- 
ber each  county  should  hold  of  the  sixty  seats  in  the  Lower  House, 
and  of  marking  out  the  boundaries  of  the  districts  from  which  the 
men  who  were  to  fill  them  should  be  chosen.  The  possession 
of  the  Legislature  in  re-apportionment  year  was  counted  nine 
points  of  the  law.  It  gave  the  party  in  control  an  opportunity, 
by  juggling  with  the  geography  of  the  State,  to  perpetuate  its 
supremacy.  The  votes  could  be  so  apportioned  and  the  district 
lines  so  arranged  as  to  aid  its  candidates  and  handicap  those  of 
its  opponents. 

The  Democrats  were  in  control  of  both  branches  in 
1870.  To  assure  themselves  of  the  majority  in  the  Assem- 
bly of  1871  they  planned  a  series  of  changes  in  district  lines 
that  were  expected  to  be  favorable  to  the  chances  of  their  candi- 
dates. The  warring  railroads  struggled  as  hard  as  the  party 
managers  to  turn  the  new  apportionment  to  their  own  advantage. 
It  was  their  desire  also  to  see  the  districts  arranged  in  a  way 
(24) 


MODERN  BA.TTLES  OF  TRENTON.  25 

that  would  enable  them  to  secure  most  easily  the  election  of 
their  own  men  to  the  chamber.  The  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company,  with  a  directory  in  sympathy  with  the  Republican 
party,  was  opposed  to  the  anticipation  by  the  Legislature  of 
1870,  of  the  decennial  re-apportionment  of  1871.  The  con- 
ditions of  the  time  were  not  unfavorable  to  Republican  success, 
even  in  New  Jersey,  in  the  fall,  and  there  was  an  idea  abroad 
that  if  these  partisan  anticipations  of  the  redistricting  era  could 
be  balked  in  the  Legislature  of  1870  it  might  be  possible  to  pro- 
duce at  Trenton  the  following  winter  (1871)  a  Republican  Legis- 
lature to  make  a  thorough  re-apportionment  upon  Republican 
lines.  The  Democratic  caucus  was  all  the  more  eager  as  a  con- 
sequence to  have  the  work  done  by  the  Legislature  of  1870. 
The  redistricting  bills  were  devised  and  sent  to  the  Clerk's 
desk  for  enactment.  The  moment  they  made  their  appearance 
some  of  the  Democratic  members  began  to  make  protests  against 
the  way  their  particular  districts  had  been  laid  out,  and  during  all 
the  session,  up  to  within  a  few  hours  of  its  close,  they  contended 
and  disputed  over  the  final  shape  the  bills  should  take.  Speaker 
Abbett  was  severely  criticised  on  the  suspicion  that  he  was  wink- 
ing at  these  delays,  but  in  the  last  hours  of  the  session  he  forced 
them  to  the  House  calendar.  When  they  were  offered  for  pas- 
sage but  fifty- seven  of  the  sixty  members  were  in  attendance. 
Herman  D.  Busch,  who  enjoyed  the  double  distinction  of  being 
the  fattest  man  in  the  State  and  of  representing  Hoboken  in  the 
Assembly,  and  Assemblyman  Probasco,  of  Hunterdon  county, 
were  absent,  and  a  little  handful  of  the  slim  Democratic  ma- 
jority present  were  numbered  among  those  who  were  in  the 
opposition.  Caleb  H.  Valentine,  of  Warren,  one  of  the  most 
showy  orators  of  that  session ;  Assemblyman  Samuel  Warthman, 
of  Camden;  Charles  C.  Grosscup,  of  Cumberland,  and  Levi 
French,  of  Burlington,  were  of  this  number.  Valentine  had 
been  making  florid  speeches  in  favor  of  a  new  county  to  be 
called  Musconetcong,  and  it  was  said  that  he  had  promised,  in 
exchange  for  Republican  votes  for  his  county  bill,  to  cast  his 
vote  against  some,  if  not  all,  of  the  Democratic  caucus  measures. 
The  reasons  that  influenced  the  others  in  their  defection  are  only 


26  MODERN  BATTLES   OF  TRENTON. 

conjectural,  but  it  did  not  escape  observation  that  they  repre- 
sented counties  where  the  old  Camden  and  Amboy  influence  had 
always  been,  and  is  even  to  this  day,  well-nigh  supreme.  Speaker 
Abbett  doubtless  knew  when  he  forced  them  to  a  vote  that  they 
were  likely  to  be  beaten,  but  concluding  that  they  might  as  well 
be  slaughtered  in  the  open  as  secretly  smothered  to  death,  he 
insisted  upon  a  roll-call  upon  them.  In  the  vote,  Valentine 
assisted  the  Republicans  to  beat  two ;  Warthman  cast  his  vote 
against  two,  and  French  and  Grosscup  aided  in  the  defeat  of  a 
third.  The  result  was  that  the  Legislature  adjourned,  leaving 
to  the  Republicans  this  important  function  if  they  should  cap- 
ture the  next  Legislature. 

Having  escaped  the  handicap  the  Legislature  of  1870  endeav- 
ored to  put  upon  them,  the  Republicans  went  into  the  campaign 
of  the  fall  with  hot  zeal.  The  parties  fought  with  bitter  parti- 
sanship for  two  shining  prizes  that  were  to  be  the  rewards  of 
victory.  It  was  preordained  that  the  party  that  controlled  the 
re- apportionment  would  make  it  with  a  view  to  maintaining  its 
supremacy  for  years ;  and  the  Legislature  was,  besides,  to  name 
a  man  to  succeed  United  States  Senator  Alexander  G.  Cattell, 
whose  term  was  to  expire  in  the  following  March.  The  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad  Company,  eager  to  command  a  following  that 
would  protect  it  against  the  encroachments  of  rival  corporations, 
plunged  into  the  campaign  as  an  active  ally  of  the  Republicans. 

Thus  was  returned  to  Trenton  in  1871  a  Republican  majority 
in  both  Senate  and  Assembly.  The  railroad's  supremacy  in  both 
Houses  was  so  pronounced  that  the  National  Railway  people  felt 
that  a  fight  for  a  franchise  that  year  would  be  an  almost  hopeless 
one,  and,  after  making  an  exhibition  of  their  teeth,  they  retired 
from  the  ground.  For  a  bluif,  they  attacked  the  lease  of  the 
Camden  and  Amboy  property  to  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company,  and  then  made  a  bold  display  of  their  own  hand  by 
asking  outright  for  a  charter  for  the  incorportion  of  the  National 
Railway  Company.  Theretofore,  their  policy  had  been  to  secure 
furtive  legislation  for  a  charter  that  on  its  face  merely  put  a  little 
local  line  somewhere  in  commission,  but  that  really,  with  the 
already-granted  charters  for  other  lines,  completed  its  through 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  27 

line  to  New  York.  The  oiFeriDg  of  an  act  for  the  direct  incor- 
poration of  a  rival  line  was  only  intended,  apparently,  to  keep 
the  public  interest  in  the  question  alive.  For  the  first  time  since 
the  rivalry  had  begun,  the  National  people  had  now  thrown 
down  the  glove  to  the  monopoly  that  controlled  the  State  Legis- 
lature. It  was  little  else,  however,  at  this  time,  than  a  notice  to 
the  Pennsylvania  managers  that  the  issue  was  about  to  be  forced 
upon  them.  The  act  was  not  pressed  with  any  vigor,  and  the 
close  of  the  Legislature  was  reached  without  any  special  excite- 
ment over  it.  It  named  as  incorporators,  Henry  M.  Hamilton, 
A.  Bailey  Clark,  Isaac  B.  Culver,  Henry  Lewis,  Robert  B. 
Cabine,  Matthew  Baird,  Jacob  Reigel,  Samuel  K.  Wilson, 
Alfred  S.  Livingston,  Charles  Smith,  Delos  E.  Culver,  James 
Moore,  John  McGregor,  Sidney  Dillon,  Franklin  J.  Mallory. 
The  accession  of  the  Republicans  to  power  gave  them  so 
much  partisan  work  to  attend  to,  that  this  "  flyer "  of  the 
National  Railway  Company  attracted  little  attention.  Besides 
the  election  of  Senator  Cattell's  successor,  and  the  perfection  of 
the  redistricting  and  re-apportionment  act  to  the  best  partisan 
advantage,  they  had  no  end  of  State  offices  to  bestow  upon  par- 
tisan favorites,  and  no  end  of  bills  to  pass  for  the  delivery  into 
Republican  hands  of  the  municipal  governments  all  over  the 
State.  It  was  the  commencement  of  one  of  the  most  disastrous 
revelries  of  partisanship  that  the  State  had  ever  seen.  Before  it 
was  ended  one  of  the  State  officers  chosen  by  the  joint  meeting 
was  discovered,  when,  grey- bearded  man  as  he  was,  he  was 
hunted  out  of  questionable  surroundings  in  Philadelphia  a  few 
years  later,  to  have  wasted  upon  wine  and  women  close  on  to  a 
hundred  thousand  dollars  of  State  moneys.  One  of  the  Senators 
who,  by  the  government  he  induced  the  Legislature  to  establish 
over  the  locality  he  represented,  succeeded  in  making  himself  a 
powerful  local  boss,  died  in  the  State  Prison  while  undergoing 
a  term  of  imprisonment  for  robbing  the  community  that  trusted 
him.  Two  cities  were  driven  by  the  extravagances  and  corrup- 
tions of  the  rings  the  Legislature  forced  upon  them,  into  bank- 
ruptcy that  set  them  back  twenty-five  years  in  growth,  and  the 
Treasurer  of  a  third,  which  narrowly  escaped  the  same  fate, 


28  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

rushed  off  to  Mexico  with  sixty  thousand  dollars  of  its  money, 
and  then  paid  it  all  over  to  a  Mexican  bandit  for  protection 
against  his  pursuers. 

These  unworthy  rulers  acquired  this  baleful  control  of 
municipalities  by  routing  the  chosen  servants  of  the  peo- 
ple from  the  local  places,  and  replacing  them  with  others 
named  in  the  joint  meeting  of  the  two  Houses;  and  in 
order  to  insure  themselves  against  disturbance,  they  fastened 
upon  the  State,  through  the  re- apportionment  and  redistricting 
that  the  Legislature  of  1870  had  left  in  their  hands,  a  gerry- 
mander of  Assembly  districts  so  manifestly  unfair  that  it  be- 
came the  talk  of  the  nation.  The  Jersey  City  "  Horseshoe," 
into  which  the  entire  Democratic  vote  of  that  Democratic  city 
was  huddled  and  allowed  but  a  single  Assembly  vote,  while  a 
smaller  Republican  constituency  was  broken  up  into  a  half  a 
dozen  districts  with,  of  course,  a  half  a  dozen  Assembly  repre- 
sentatives, was  one  of  its  products.  The  voice  of  the  State  was 
stifled  through  it  so  thoroughly  that  even  when  the  Democracy 
rolled  up  a  total  majority  of  15,000  to  18,000  throughout  the 
Commonwealth,  the  Assembly  yet  showed  an  overwhelming 
Republican  majority.  It  was  so  notable  a  piece  of  political  en- 
gineering that  it  set  the  cue  for  gerrymanders  all  over  the 
country,  and  was  cited  as  a  precedent  twenty  years  later  for  an 
equally  infamous  Democratic  gerrymander.  The  questionable 
distinction  of  introducing  this  disfranchising  enactment  falls  to 
Senator  Torrey,  of  Ocean. 

The  caucus  for  the  United  States  Senatorship  was  the  one 
reputable  proceeding  of  the  Legislature.  The  names  of  Cor- 
nelius Walsh,  an  Englishman  of  Newark,  who  had  accumulated 
something  of  a  fortune  in  the  manufacture  of  trunks ;  of  Cort- 
landt  Parker,  a  noted  advocate  of  the  same  city,  and  of  Fred- 
erick T.  Frelinghuysen,  the  courtly  son  of  a  family  already 
famous  in  the  annals  of  statesmanship,  and  himself  a  former  At- 
torney-General of  the  State,  were  presented.  Mr.  Parker  did 
not  show  much  strength  among  the  members ;  Frelinghuysen's 
name  and  capacity  commended  him  to  all  hands,  but  Walsh's 
wealth  made  him,  in  spite  of  his  English  lineage,  a  dangerous 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  29 

rival.  It  was  only  after  Walsh  had  been  bought  out  of  the  com- 
petition by  the  promise  of  the  nomination  for  the  Governor- 
ship in  the  fall,  that  the  way  was  opened  for  Mr.  Fre- 
linghuysen's  election.  Mr.  Frelinghuysen  was  chosen  when 
the  joint  meeting  came,  over  Governor  Randolph,  whom 
the  Democratic  caucus  had  put  in  nomination  against  him. 

Thomas  N.  McCarter,  of  Newark,  was  to  have  been  the  tem- 
porary chairman  of  the  Republican  State  Convention  that  met 
at  Trenton  in  the  fall  to  select  the  candidate  for  Governor,  but 
he  was  unable  to  be  present,  and  General  Thomas  Van  Buren, 
of  Hudson,  acted  in  his  stead.  Edward  Bettle,  of  Camden, 
took  the  chair  when  the  permanent  organization  was  effected. 
The  prospect  of  Republican  success  was  so  alluring  that  more 
than  half  a  dozen  candidates  were  tempted  into  the  field.  Cort- 
landt  Parker,  Marcus  L.  Ward,  John  Hill,  Elston  Marsh,  Theo- 
dore Little  and  Colonel  A.  D.  Hope  appeared  in  convention  as 
competitors  for  the  nomination  that  had  been  promised  to  Walsh. 
Neither  of  them,  however,  showed  sufficient  strength  to  make 
him  a  formidable  candidate  against  the  Newark  trunk-maker, 
and  Hoxsey,  of  Passaic,  made  an  effort  to  spring  General  Judson 
Kilpatrick,  the  dashing  cavalryman  of  the  war,  upon  his  fellow- 
delegates.  The  Republican  leaders,  who  had  promised  the  favor 
of  the  convention  to  Walsh,  feared  that  the  mention  of  the 
name  of  Kilpatrick,  who  had  doubly  endeared  himself  to  the 
hearts  of  Jersey  Republicans  by  his  brilliant  platform  oratory 
and  his  record  as  a  soldier,  would  stampede  the  delegates,  and 
their  followers  endeavored  to  drown  Hoxsey's  voice  in  shouts. 
Half  the  men  in  the  hall  kept  tally  of  the  announcement  while 
the  first  ballot  was  being  taken  amid  breathless  excitement,  and 
the  pledged  leaders  of  the  party  drew  a  long  sigh  of  relief  when 
they  saw  that  the  little  soldier  from  Deckertown  had  not  swept 
the  convention  away  from  their  candidate.  Before  the  second 
roll-call  had  been  commenced,  the  frightened  managers  hurried 
and  scurried  down  the  aisles  and  over  benches  to  beg  votes  for 
Walsh,  and  when  the  tallies  were  footed  up  it  was  found  that 
he  had  been  put  in  nomination. 

The  press  of  the  day  following  the  convention  disclosed  a 


30  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

general  conviction  that  Mr.  Walsh's  English  nativity  would 
prove  a  marked  weakness  for  him  at  the  polls ;  but  it  was  urged, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  his  prominence  in  the  Methodist  Church, 
and  his  liberal  donations  to  its  treasury,  would  be  an  element  of 
strength  for  him  in  the  rural  districts,  where  a  Methodist  is 
sometimes  a  Democrat.  The  Democratic  party  did  not  fear  his 
Methodist  alliances  half  as  much  as  the  Republicans  had  built 
upon  them  ;  but  they  were  discomforted  by  the  eflPect  the  expendi- 
ture of  vast  sums  of  money  he  was  supposed  to  be  ready  to 
make  upon  his  campaign  might  produce  in  conjunction  with  the 
generally  unsatisfactory  prospect  of  things  for  the  party,  and 
they  felt  that  the  occasion  had  come  when  they  must  throw  aside 
all  of  their  personal  preferences,  and  pave  the  way  for  victory 
by  presenting  the  strongest  man  in  their  ranks  as  his  competitor. 

Democratic  councils  had  been  dominated  for  years  by  a  coterie 
of  bright  men  whom  the  irreverent  Democratic  masses  called 
"The  State  House  Ring."  Judge  Lathrop  was  one  of  this 
potential  quartette.  Ex-Senator  Little,  who  had  now  become 
the  Clerk  of  the  Court  of  Chancery ;  Henry  C.  Kelsey, 
who  became  Secretary  of  State  at  about  the  same  time,  and 
Governor  Theodore  Randolph  were  the  others. 

Judge  Lathrop  had  been  in  the  wholesale  dry  goods  business, 
first  in  the  South  and  afterwards  in  New  York.  He  married 
into  the  family  of  Boat-owner  Gibbons,  who  was  looked  upon 
as  one  of  the  most  important  and  influential  business  men  in 
Morris  county.  The  Judge's  interest  in  New  Jersey  State  affairs 
began  when  the  New  York  Chamber  of  Commerce  deputed  him 
to  see  that  the  New  Jersey  State  authorities  did  nothing,  or 
allowed  nothing,  that  would  affect  the  value  of  the  harbor  of 
New  York.  It  was  at  a  time  when  the  riparian  discussion  was 
young,  and  when  numerous  movements  were  projected  on  the 
Jersey  shore  that  might  reach  the  channel  of  the  river  and  even- 
tually destroy  New  York  bay  as  a  refuge  for  the  floating  commerce 
of  the  world.  Even  as  early  as  that,  the  New  York  merchants 
and  men  of  commerce  feared  that  the  "  filling  in  "  on  the  Jersey 
shore,  if  carried  on  too  extensively,  would  be  swept  by  the  tide 
out  toward  the  sea,  and,  eventually  choking  up  the  Narrows, 


Henry  C.  Kelsey. 


32  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

make  the  great  bay  of  New  York  a  sort  of  inland  lake.  It 
was  to  see  that  these  threatened  water  invasions  from  the  Jersey 
coast  were  not  carried  to  a  dangerous  point  that  Judge  Lathrop 
went  into  public  life  in  New  Jersey.  His  participation  in  the 
discussions  over  the  various  aspects  of  the  riparian  question,  and 
his  influence  in  bringing  about  the  final  adjustment,  brought 
him  into  a  bright  public  light,  and  made  him  one  of  the  pic- 
turesque figures  in  State  politics.  The  managers  of  Democratic 
affairs  saw  that  he  was  a  man  of  exceptionable  power — skillful, 
able,  shrewd  and  resourceful — and  he  was  gladly  welcomed  into 
the  party  councils  as  their  coadjutor. 

Mr.  Kelsey's  official  position — to  be  Secretary  of  State  is  to 
be  next  to  the  Governor  in  political  prominence — gave  him  an 
opportunity  to  lift  his  light  from  under  the  bushel  basket  and 
dazzle  the  State  with  it.  Through  the  patronage  of  his  office  he 
easily  made  himself  recognized  as  a  political  factor  in  the 
extreme  northern  counties.  He  had  been  a  country  editor  in 
Sussex  when  Governor  Randolph  first  discovered  him.  During 
his  campaign  to  the  Governorship,  Randolph  had  dropped  in  on 
the  town  of  Newton,  and  at  the  office  of  the  "  Newton  Herald  " 
he  made  Mr.  Kelsey's  acquaintance.  He  found  him  unusually 
fertile  in  suggestion,  a  brave,  cold  calculator,  and  when  he  had 
reached  the  Governorship  he  made  up  his  mind  that  the  Sussex 
editor  would  make  an  admirable  Secretary  of  State,  and  con- 
ferred the  dignity  upon  him.  It  was  not  long  before  Mr.  Kelsey 
had  forced  recognition  as  one  of  the  most  skillful  members  of 
the  Democratic  State  household.  He  was  a  small,  thin  and 
wiry  fellow,  and  he  cultivated  an  affectation  of  deafness  that 
shielded  him  from  noticing  the  unpleasant  things  his  enemies 
and  rivals  had  to  say  about  him,  but  left  him  keenly  alive  to  all 
the  things  that  were  gratifying  to  his  pride. 

Governor  Randolph's  position  at  the  head  of  the  State  was 
the  reward  of  years  in  the  public  service.  He  was  one  of  the 
largest  coal  operators  in  New  York,  and  so  rich  that  he  came  to 
be  known  as  "  Mr.  Moneybags  of  Morristown."  He  had  first 
lived  in  Hudson  county,  been  active  in  public  affairs  there,  and 
represented  the  county  in  the  State  Senate.     Later  he  purchased  a 


MODERN  BA.TTLES  OF  TRENTON.  33 


handsome  property  at  Morristown,  and  became  a  resident  of  that 
county.  He  had  set  his  eye  upon  the  United  States  Senate,  and, 
as  far  as  he  was  able,  had  given  a  drift  to  State  affairs  calculated 
to  turn  the  current  of  politics  toward  the  channel  of  his  ambi- 
tion. He  was  bending  eagerly  forward  to  the  goal  for  which  he 
was  reaching,  and  had  now  reached  the  Gubernatorial  milestone 
on  the  road  to  Washington. 

The  man  who  made  the  schemes  of  these  three  ready  and  far- 
seeing  planners  effective  by  his  energy  was  Henry  S.  Little,  then 
an  ex-Senator,  and,  by  Randolph's  appointment,  Clerk  of  the 
Court  of  Chancery.  That  clerkship  was  not  only  one  of  the 
most  lucrative  places  in  the  Capitol  building,  but  it  was  also  the 
one  that  gave  largest  opportunities  for  acquaintance  with  the 
class  of  men  who  make  and  mould  public  sentiment.  The  fifteen 
hundred  lawyers  in  the  State,  with  their  army  of  clients  and 
litigants,  were  brought  into  almost  daily  contact  with  his  office. 
Mr.  Little  had  enough  of  the  Irish  instinct  of  push,  aggressive- 
ness and  ambition  to  make  the  most  of  the  opportunity  that  lay 
at  his  hand.  His  father  had  come  from  Ireland  in  1810,  and 
settled  in  Monmouth  county.  And  there  he  had  gone  into  busi- 
ness, and  finally  started  the  first  line  of  steam- packets  that  ever 
plied  between  any  point  in  Monmouth  county  and  New  York. 
These  steam-launches  of  his  used  to  run  down  the  creek  that 
struggles  out  through  the  meadows  from  Matawan  to  the  bay, 
and  opened  a  market  for  the  produce  of  the  farms  in  all  the 
region  around  about.  As  his  wealth  grew,  he  organized  the 
Farmers'  National  Bank  of  Middletown  Point,  which  is  yet  in 
existence ;  and  the  private  tutor  whom  he  brought  to  his  home 
to  educate  his  children  became  the  nucleus,  so  to  speak,  of  a 
local  classical  school. 

When  Henry  Stafford  Little  came  of  age  he  divided  his  time 
between  his  country  law  practice  and  the  further  development  of 
the  resources  of  the  county  for  which  his  father  had  already  done 
so  much.  He  promoted  and  in  large  part  built  the  turnpike 
which  opened  new  highways  for  settlers ;  and  subsequently,  by 
the  incorporation  of  the  New  York  and  Long  Branch  Railroad 
Company,  established  the  route  that  has  since  made  the  seacoast 

3 


34  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


section  of  Monmouth  the  gayest  of  midsummer  capitals  and 
dotted  that  section  of  it  with  whole  lines  of  pretty  and  thriving 
villages.  So  that  his  family  for  two  generations  had  thus  been 
identified  with  the  prosperity  and  progress  of  the  county.  When, 
in  recognition  of  his  public  spirit,  his  neighbors  sent  him  to  the 
State  Senate  as  the  county's  spokesman,  he  reached  the  head  of 
the  most  important  committees,  and  finally  the  Presidency  of 
that  body ;  and  his  selection  by  Governor  Randolph  as  the  Clerk 
of  the  Court  of  Chancery  was  but  a  promotion  earned  as  the 
reward  of  his  public  services. 

In  build  and  appearance  he  was  the  very  antipode  of  Mr. 
Kelsey.  Too  active  to  be  stout,  he  was  tall,  wiry  and  nervous, 
and  a  man  upon  whose  face  one  could  read  the  signs  of  intense 
activity. 

As  the  time  for  the  election  of  a  new  Governor  approached  in 
1871,  these  four  magnates  of  the  State  House  got  together,  with 
their  lieutenants,  at  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  in  New  York, 
and  agreed  that  they  would  advance  Joseph  D.  Bedle,  the  rotund 
and  cherub-faced  Supreme  Court  Justice,  whose  circuit  was  in 
Hudson  county,  to  the  chief  Chair  of  State ;  and  they  im- 
mediately set  the  machine  in  motion  to  secure  his  nomination  by 
the  State  convention.  Bedle's  name  had  scarcely  been  proposed 
before  it  became  apparent  that  he  would  have  to  measure  lances 
with  an  antagonistic  power  in  his  own  county.  From  his  posi- 
tion on  the  bench  Judge  Bedle  had  thrown  obstructions  in  the 
way  of  some  public  schemes  that  had  been  set  on  foot  by  Con- 
gressman Orestes  Cleveland,  who  was  then  the  most  considerable 
political  factor  in  Hudson;  and  Mr.  Cleveland  set  out  to  cripple 
his  canvass  by  weaning  his  home  delegation  from  him.  Of 
course,  by  the  rule  of  politics,  the  failure  of  his  own  county  to 
support  him  in  the  convention  would  have  been  an  insurmount- 
able bar  to  his  nomination.  If  Bedle  were  allowed  to  stand 
alone  before  the  people  of  Hudson  as  a  candidate  for  Governor, 
local  pride  and  affiliation  would  have  given  him  their  support 
for  the  asking,  and  in  order  to  furnish  the  local  politicians  with 
another  Hudson  name  to  rally  around,  the  shrewd  Congressman 
suggested  that  Leon  Abbett,  Bedle's  next-door  neighbor  in  old 


Henry  S  Little. 


36  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

Sussex  Place  in  Jersey  City  aod  then  rising  into  prominence  as  a 
champion  of  the  workingman  and  wage-  earner,  be  Hudson's  candi- 
date for  the  Governorship.  In  spite  of  this  attempt  to  divide  his 
neighbors  against  him,  Governor  Bedle's  strength  grew  apace,  and 
Mr.  Cleveland  saw  that  he  would  secure  the  nomination  unless  a 
better-known  name  were  brought  into  the  canvass. 

One  Democratic  name  was  known  in  every  household  in 
the  State.  Joel  Parker  had  been  its  Governor  in  war  times. 
His  contact  with  the  men  whom  the  State  sent  forward  to 
Washington  to  fill  its  battlefield  quota,  and  his  sympathetic 
reception  of  their  bereaved  wives  and  children  when  they  went 
to  him  with  their  tales  of  misery,  gave  him  opportunities  for 
personal  acquaintances  among  the  maeses  that  he  had  im- 
proved. A  great  big,  good-natured,  rollicking  fellow,  tall  of 
stature  and  broad  of  girth,  with  the  air  and  manner  and  dress^ 
of  a  farmer,  always  accessible,  with  a  generous  word  for  every- 
body and  a  kindly  sympathy  for  all  who  needed  it,  he  had 
come  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  personal  friend  of  half  the  men,, 
women  and  children  in  the  Commonwealth,  and  they  in  turn 
esteemed  it  a  rare  flattery  to  be  accounted  his  friend.  The  party 
never  was  in  straits  but  that  this  old  man  of  the  people  wa* 
summoned  to  the  front.  And  now,  to  defeat  his  local  enemy,, 
Mr.  Cleveland  brought  his  name  forward  as  one  good  to 
conjure  with.  Almost  immediately  the  War  Governor's  Mon- 
mouth home  became  the  Mecca  of  the  party  workers  of  high 
and  low  degree.  Big  men  and  little  men,  leaders  and  followers, 
all  sought  him  to  urge  him  into  the  canvass.  They  found  him 
willing,  but  unable.  He  had  a  family  to  provide  for,  and  noth- 
ing but  his  practice  as  a  lawyer  to  depend  upon,  and  he  felt  that 
he  could  not  afford  to  leave  his  field  of  labor  for  the  pittance  of 
$3,000  a  year,  with  which  the  labors  of  the  Governor  were 
rewarded.  They  pledged  themselves  to  advance  the  Governor's 
salary  to  $5,000  a  year,  if  he  would  but  consent  to  lead  the 
fray,  and,  after  much  urging,  he  consented  if  the  nomination 
were  offered  to  him  with  substantial  unanimity,  to  accept  it. 

The  State  House  managers  were  alone  unwilling  to  accept  him.^ 
Senator  Abbett's  bid  for  the  Hudson  delegation  had  been  a  reason- 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  37 

ably  successful  one,  but  when  the  day  for  the  holding  of  the  State 
convention  arrived,  it  was  understood  that  these  forty-nine  votes 
were  to  be  cast  at  the  proper  time  for  the  old  war  horse  from 
Monmouth.  Similar  arrangements  were  made  with  delegations 
from  five  of  the  lower  counties  of  the  State.  They  were  all 
committed  to  the  support  of  local  candidates,  with  the  under- 
standing that  when  Congressman  Orestes  Cleveland  made  the 
speech  on  the  floor  of  the  convention  formally  putting  Parker 
in  nomination  they  were  all  to  abandon  their  local  favorites,  and 
join  in  the  hue  and  cry  for  Parker.  J.  Daggett  Hunt,  a  tall, 
fine-looking  delegate  from  Summit,  with  a  good  voice  and  fine 
delivery,  who  was  over-ambitious  to  make  the  first  presentation 
of  Governor  Parker's  name,  almost  spoiled  the  programme  by 
making  a  pretentious  speech  in  Parker's  favor  before  the  oppor- 
tune moment  for  Mr.  Cleveland's  rallying  speech  arrived. 

Much  excitement  attended  the  informal  roll-call,  but  it 
seemed  as  if  Bedle  had  a  majority  of  the  delegates,  and  Colonel 
Wm.  C.  Alexander,  who  served  as  the  Chairman  of  the  conven- 
tion, was  about  to  announce  the  Judge's  nomination  when  the 
Hudson  Congressman  sprang  to  the  floor. 

"  The  Chairman  is  about  to  announce  the  result  of  the  ballot," 
Colonel  Alexander  admonished.  "  For  what  purpose  does  the 
delegate  from  Hudson  desire  the  floor  ?  " 

When  Mr.  Cleveland  said  in  response  that  he  was  going  to 
make  a  last  effort  for  harmony,  the  State  House  delegates  sup- 
posed that  he  was  about  to  turn  the  Hudson  county  delegation 
over  to  their  favorite ;  and  it  was  only  after  he  had  made  his  pre- 
arranged speech  for  Parker  and  enthused  the  convention  for  the 
man  from  Monmouth,  that  they  saw  the  error  they  had  made  in 
allowing  him  to  take  the  floor.  The  anti-Bedle  delegates  broke 
into  prearranged  applause  when  he  announced  the  change  of 
the  forty-nine  Hudson  votes  from  Abbett  to  Parker,  and  the 
five  lower  county  delegations  broke  from  their  first-announced 
candidates  to  the  Freehold  veteran.  A  stampede  followed,  and, 
on  "Cale"  Valentine's  motion,  Parker's  nomination  was  made 
by  acclamation.  The  other  candidates  presented  to  the  conven- 
tion before  the  end  was  reached  were  Nehemiah  Perry,  of  New- 


38  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 

ark ;  General  Theodore  Runyon,  who  had  already  canvassed  the 
State  for  the  same  office  in  1865,  and  been  beaten  by  Marcu& 
L.  Ward ;  Benjamin  F.  Lee,  a  rising  figure  in  South  Jersey 
politics;  General  Charles  B.  Haight,  a  rollicking  orator,  practic- 
ing at  the  bar  at  Monmouth ;  Isaac  B.  Dickinson  and  Thomas 
D.  Armstrong. 

After  Joel  Parker's  nomination  was  made  unanimous  the 
Republicans  assailed  his  war  record.  They  declared  that  he 
had  been  purposely  dilatory  in  sending  men  forward  in  the  hour 
of  the  nation's  peril,  and  that  a  sympathy  with  the  Rebels  had 
made  him  disloyally  tenacious  of  the  State's  rights  as  opposed 
to  the  nation's  authority.  Mr.  Benjamin  F.  Lee,  who  accom- 
panied him  on  his  campaign,  tells  an  admirable  story  of  the 
skill  with  which  Governor  Parker  met  these  unfair  partisan 
critics  of  his. 

"Gentlemen  of  the  jury,"  Mr.  Lee  heard  him  begin  at  one 
of  the  campaign  gatherings — the  crowd  imagined  that  he  had 
forgotten  that  he  was  not  at  that  moment  a  lawyer  preparing  to 
plead  for  a  client,  but  a  citizen  seeking  the  suffrages  of  his  fel- 
low-citizens, and  a  loud  laugh  greeted  his  slip  of  tongue. 

"  Well,"  the  old  Governor  went  on  after  the  merriment  had 
subsided,  "  I  should  have  f  aid  '  Fellow  citizens ! '  But  no  ! 
let  it  be  'Gentlemen  of  the  jury,'  for  after  all  you  are  a  jury 
gathered  to  try  your  candidate  on  a  charge  of  sympathy  with 
treason,  and  to  declare  him  guilty  or  not  guilty  by  your  votes 
when  you  have  heard  all  the  evidence.  So  let  it  be  '  Gentlemen 
of  the  jury/  and  we'll  organize  a  court  here  for  the  trial  of 
Governor  Joel  Parker  on  the  charges  that  have  been  made 
against  him." 

Then  assuming  to  be  the  public  prosecutor,  he  formally  opened 
the  case  for  the  State,  and  arraigned  himself  in  such  a  speech  as 
a  prosecutor  might  have  made  had  he  been  really  at  the  bar. 
Then  he  called  the  witnesses  one  after  the  other,  pictured  them 
as  sitting  in  the  witness  box,  and  questioned  them  on  the  direct 
and  on  the  "cross"  just  as  they  might  have  been  questioned  by 
counsel  on  either  side,  and  repeated  their  imaginary  responses  to 
his  amused  and  interested  audience. 


Joel  Parker. 


40  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

"And  now  the  State  rests,"  he  went  on,  "and  the  witnesses  for 
the  defense  are  summoned.  Andrew  G.  Curtin,  take  the  stand. 
You  are  the  War  Governor  of  Pennsylvania,  Mr.  Curtin  ?  " 

"  I  am." 

"  Do  you  know  the  reputation  of  Joel  Parker,  of  New  Jersey, 
for  loyalty  to  the  Union  cause  ?  " 

"I  do." 

"  Is  it  good  or  bad  ?  " 

For  answer  he  read  a  letter  from  Curtin  in  which  that  noted 
patriot  had  spoken  words  of  highest  encomium  for  the  zeal  with 
which  Joel  Parker  had  upborne  the  Union  arms. 

"Edwin  M.  Stanton,  take  the  stand."  And  the  Governor, 
acting  as  counsel  for  the  defense,  put  the  great  Secretary  through 
the  same  series  of  interrogations.  And,  for  answer,  Stanton's 
telegram,  thanking  the  Governor  for  the  alacrity  with  which  he 
had  sent  troops  forward,  was  read  amid  wildest  applause. 

"  I  might  have  produced  a  witness  whose  certificate  would  be 
the  absolute  acquittal  of  the  defendant  at  the  bar."  he  said,  with 
subdued  pathos,  and  turning  as  if  to  address  a  court,  "  but  the 
hand  of  the  assassin  has  sent  him  to  a  grave  kept  green  by  the 
tears  of  his  people.  I  am  forced,  your  Honor,  to  go  to  the  jury 
without  the  testimony  of  Abraham  Lincoln." 

As  though  he  were  the  judge  at  the  trial,  he  now  turned  his 
face  to  the  audience  and  solemnly  charged  the  jury,  and  at  the 
end  of  it  he  exclaimed  that  "It  is  for  you,  gentlemen  of  the  jury, 
to  say  whether,  on  the  evidence  presented  before  you  to-night, 
this  defendant,  Joel  Parker,  is  guilty  or  not  guilty." 

Every  man  and  boy  in  the  vast  throng  was  on  his  feet  in  an 
instant  and  shouting  a  verdict  of  acquittal,  and  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  when  election  day  came  not  a  man  who  witnessed  that 
imaginary  trial  failed  to  cast  his  vote  for  Joel  Parker: 

When  Governor  Parker  was  ready  to  step  into  the  Governor- 
ship, to  which  he  was  elected  over  Walsh  by  a  majority  just 
short  of  six  thousand,  it  looked  as  though  the  promise  of  in- 
creased salary,  with  which  he  had  been  tempted  into  the  battle, 
was  not  to  be  redeemed.  Only  the  Legislature  could  pass  the 
act  making  the  increase ;  and  that,  in  both  branches,  was  con- 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  41 

trolled  by  the  Republicans.  It  was  almost  rash  to  hope  that  a 
Republican  Legislature  could  be  persuaded  to  redeem  a  campaign 
promise  made  by  its  opponents  to  their  candidate.  Even  if  they 
were  disposed  to  do  it,  the  act,  to  be  constitutionally  effective, 
must  be  passed  and  approved,  and  on  the  statute-books  before 
the  commencement  of  his  term.  The  Legislature  assembled  a 
week  before  the  day  fixed  for  his  inauguration,  and,  as  it  was 
usual  for  the  Houses  to  sit  during  the  first  week  only  for  organi- 
zation, there  was  the  other  obstruction  of  time  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  the  keeping  of  the  engagement. 

Everybody  knew  of  the  understanding  upon  which  Parker 
had  gone  into  the  campaign,  and  by  the  time  the  Houses  got 
together  the  people  had  rather  settled  down  to  the  conviction 
that  the  promise  that  he  should  have  $5,000  a  year  during  his 
term  of  service  was  something  like  a  contract  between  the  State, 
whose  people  had  made  him  its  Chief  Magistrate,  and  himself. 
The  members  of  the  two  Houses  were  not  dead  to  the  prevail- 
ing sentiment,  and  the  moment  they  got  together  Assemblyman 
George  H.  Farrier,  a  well-known  Hudson  Republican,  offered  a 
bill  fixing  the  Governor's  salary  at  the  stipulated  advance,  and, 
under  suspension  of  rules,  it  was  put  through  both  Houses,  and 
immediately  signed  by  Governor  Randolph,  and  so  became  a  law 
within  an  hour  after  its  introduction.* 


*  The  discussion  concerning  the  increase  of  salary  was  marked,  incidentally, 
by  an  agitation  over  the  question  of  providing  the  Governor  with  an  official 
residence  at  the  cajjital.  When  the  salary  was  not  even  as  much  as  the  $3,000 
that  Governor  Parker  did  not  think  he  would  be  able  to  serve  for,  the  State 
had  tried  to  piece  it  out  by  providing  its  Chief  Magistrate  with  an  establish- 
ment in  which  he  and  his  family  might  live  rent  free,  and  had  erected  on  State 
street,  a  block  or  two  east  of  the  Capitol,  a  building  that  for  several  years  was 
occupied  as  the  Executive  mansion.  As  the  affairs  of  the  State  did  not  con- 
sume all  of  their  time,  and  they  preferred  to  live  in  their  own  homes — a 
good  many  of  them  had  better  than  the  one  provided  by  the  State — the  Gov- 
ernors fell  into  the  habit  of  renting  the  building,  and  appropriating  the  pro- 
-ceeds  to  their  own  emolument,  and  the  State  ultimately  sold  it.  The  State 
Street  House  of  the  present  day  is  the  old-time  establishment,  with  such  en- 
largements and  improvements  as  were  needed  to  make  a  hotel  of  it.  The 
main  building,  that  part  of  it  that  abuts  on  the  street,  is  the  old  Governor's 
residence,  but  some  changes  have  been  made  in  it.     What  is  now  the  hotel 


42  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

A  week  later  Governor  Parker  entered  upon  his  second  term 
of  service  to  the  State  with  everything  arranged  even  by  his 
party  adversaries,  even  as  his  party  friends  had  planned  it  for 
him. 


office,  served  as  the  reception  and  sitting-room.  The  broad  English  fireplace, 
that  used  to  make  it  a  pleasant  rendezvous  for  public  men  in  the  winter  season, 
still  remains,  except  that  the  hotel  proprietors  have  used  it  as  a  niche  for  a 
drum  stove. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


Which  is  a  Short  One  to  Tell  of  J.  Daggett  Hunt's 
Disappointment. 


ip^HE  prominence  into  which  his  advocacy  of  the  new 
railroad  law  had  brought  him,  and  the  importance  of 
the  part  which  he  played  in  the  convention  that  gave 
Joel  Parker  the  nomination  for  Governor,  encouraged 
J.  Daggett  Hunt  in  the  belief  that  the  Governor  might  ap- 
point him  to  the  clerkship  of  the  Supreme  Court.  The 
position  was  then,  as  now,  one  of  the  most  lucrative  in  the 
State  House.  South  Jersey,  however,  urged  the  claims  of  Ben- 
jamin F.  Lee  upon  the  Governor,  and  for  weeks  it  was  un- 
certain who  of  them  would  finally  capture  the  Governor's  favor. 
Mr.  Lee  was  quite  as  strongly  equipped  with  claims  for  recogni- 
tion as  was  Mr.  Hunt.  He  was  not  a  brilliant  platform  orator 
like  Hunt,  but  no  man  in  the  State  could  match  him  as  a  spin- 
ner of  delightful  yarns.  Even  up  to  the  time  of  this  writing 
he  maintains  his  early  reputation  as  one  of  the  most  picturesque 
raconteurs  in  the  State.  Quite  as  much,  however,  as  by  his  per- 
sonal qualities,  was  he  commended  by  his  political  services  to  the 
consideration  of  the  Executive.  For  years  he  had  been  an  im- 
portant factor  in  the  politics  of  his  section,  and  two  or  three 
times  had  so  materially  cut  down  the  natural  Republican 
majority  of  that  section  that  he  was  regarded  as  its  leading 
Democrat. 

The  son  of  Hon.  Thomas  Lee,  who  had  himself  been  a 
prominent  public  man,  he  had  tactfully  improved  his  oppor- 
tunities to  form  the  acquaintance  of  influential  citizens,  while 
his  own  bon  homme  won  him  the  friendship  of  the  new  men 
with  whom  he  came  in  contact.  For  years  his  home  was  under 
the  shadow  of  a  glass  factory  in  Cumberland,  and  the  friendship 
which  the  hands  employed  in  it  felt  for  him  made  him  popular 

(43) 


44  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

with  the  laboring  element  all  through  the  county.  He  was 
sent  to  the  Democratic  State  Committee  to  represent  the  inter- 
ests of  the  district,  and  in  1856  was  made  a  Presidential 
Elector.  Subsequently,  when  he  was  nominated  for  the  Legis- 
lature in  the  overwhelmingly  Republican  district  in  which  he 
lived,  he  came  within  three  votes  of  carrying  it.  In  1870  he 
was  given  the  nomination  for  Congress.  The  First  district  was 
then,  as  now.  Republican,  ordinarily,  by  3,700  majority.  It  had 
become  a  retreat  for  runaway  blacks  from  the  South,  and  these, 
never  pursued,  or  never  overtaken,  had  settled  within  its  limits. 
The  Emancipation  Proclamation  which  freed  them  and  the  negro 
suffrage  amendment  which  enfranchised  them,  served  to  increase 
the  normal  Republican  majority  to  close  on  to  5,000.  Mr. 
Lee  accepted  the  nomination  for  Congress  in  the  face  of  certain 
defeat  for  the  aid  which  he  might  render  his  party  in  other  sec- 
tions of  the  State ;  and  his  gallant  contest  reduced  the  majority 
to  1,500.  These  particularly  flattering  records  at  the  polls 
pointed  him  out  as  an  exceptionally  strong  man  in  that  section 
of  the  State,  and  when  the  Gubernatorial  convention  of  1871 
assembled,  every  delegate  from  the  First  district  went  to  Tren- 
ton to  urge  his  selection  as  the  candidate.  He  let  them  know 
that  his  preference  was  for  Joel  Parker,  but  they  were  bent 
upon  casting  their  118  votes  for  him  on  the  informal  ballot 
till  he  insisted  upon  their  yielding  to  the  general  demand  for 
Parker's  nomination,  and  he  wheeled  them  into  line  for  the 
Freehold  veteran  just  in  time  to  turn  the  tide  of  battle.  South 
Jersey,  therefore,  felt  herself  entitled  to  some  recognition  at  the 
hands  of  the  new  Governor,  and  who  better  than  Benjamin  F. 
Lee  to  receive  it  in  its  behalf? 

Mr.  Lee  had  been  in  sharp  antagonism  in  Cumberland 
county  with  old  John  L.  Sharp,  known  at  that  time  to  every 
public  man  in  the  State.  They  had  been  rival  candidates  for 
Congress,  and  their  rivalry  had  resulted  in  the  defeat  of  both  in 
the  Democratic  District  Convention.  Mr.  Lee  thought  that  he 
had  the  more  right  to  be  embittered  because  of  his  belief  that 
Mr.  Sharp's  presence  in  the  convention  was  rather  for  the  pur- 
pose of  defeating  him  than  in  hope  of  winning  the  nomination 


Benjamin  P.  Lee. 


46  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

himself.  And  so  naturally  enough  it  was  expected  that  Mr. 
Lee  would  seek  opportunities  for  reprisals.  But  when,  in  the 
following  fall,  the  party  went  hunting  around  Cumberland 
county  for  a  candidate  for  State  Senator,  Mr.  Sharp  was  proba- 
bly more  surprised  than  gratified  to  learn  that  Mr.  Lee  was  one 
of  his  warmest  advocates. 

"  Not  that  I  like  a  hair  of  your  head,"  he  said  to  Sharp, 
"  but  because  I  recognize  that  in  the  existing  condition  of  affairs 
you  are  the  only  man  that  can  probably  win  this  fight." 

Sharp  retorted  that  he  would  look  for  an  opportunity  to  get 
square  with  Mr.  Lee,  and  when  he  heard  that  Governor  Parker 
was  considering  Mr.  Lee's  name  in  connection  with  the  Supreme 
Court  clerkship,  he  hastened  to  Trenton  to  say  that  Mr.  Lee 
was  the  man  who,  of  all  others,  ought  to  be  appointed.. 

After  a  little  delay  Mr.  Lee's  name  was  sent  into  the  Senate 
for  confirmation.  Daggett  Hunt  had  just  taken  his  seat  at  the 
table  in  one  of  the  hotels,  when  the  colored  waiter  who  was 
bringing  him  his  dinner  told  him  of  his  defeat.  Hunt  could 
scarcely  believe  his  ears. 

"  What's  that  you  said?"  he  asked  of  the  dusky  plate- bearer. 

"  I  jest  heah,"  was  the  response,  "dat  de  Gub'ner  done  gone 
made  Mr.  Lee  Clerk  ob  de  S'preme  Co't." 

Hunt  almost  upset  his  plate  of  soup  in  the  energy  with  which 
he  shot  from  the  table.  Seizing  his  hat,  he  dashed  up  to  the 
State  House  to  find  out  whether  the  story  was  true.  The 
Governor  was  not  there,  but  Eddie  Fox,  his  Chief  Clerk,  who 
sat  at  the  desk  in  the  ante-room,  assured  him  that  the  colored 
man's  information  was  perfectly  reliable.  Daggett  almost  burst 
into  tears. 

"  It  is  bad  enough,"  he  sobbed,  "  to  be  disappointed  in  my 
expectations,  but  great  heavens !  imagine  my  humiliation  when 
the  news  was  brought  to  me  by  a  confounded  darky." 

At  that  time  the  colored  brother  was  not  in  as  high  favor 
among  Jerseymen  as  he  is  to-day.  The  State  had  been  kept  in 
perpetual  agitation  for  two  or  three  years  over  the  constitutional 
amendment  which  enfranchised  him.  The  Legislature  had  re- 
jected it,  and  Governor  Randolph  had  won  the  odium  of  Demo- 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  47 

crats  by  advising  in  one  of  his  annual  messages,  written  after 
the  amendment  had  become  part  of  the  United  States  Constitu- 
tion, that  the  State  accept  it  in  good  faith.  Even  in  the  cam- 
paign that  had  resulted  in  Parker's  election  to  the  Governorship, 
it  had  been  an  exciting  issue,  and  at  the  time  of  Mr.  Lee's 
appointment  the  people  were  not  yet  reconciled  to  the  idea  of 
taking  the  colored  man  to  their  bosom. 

Of  course  Mr.  Lee  was  confirmed  by  the  Senate,  and  he  was 
subsequently  re-appointed  by  Governor  Bedle  in  1877,  and 
Ludlow  in  1882,  Green  in  1887,  and  Abbett  in  1892. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Which  Tells  op  the  Complications  Out  of  Which  the  General. 

Railroad    Law    Came,    and    How    the    Decision    op    Vice 

Chancellor  Dodd,  on  the  Stanhope  Fraud  Case, 

Helped  to  Bring  About  the  Result. 


LL  political  matters  having  been  disposed  of,  the  Leg- 
islature of  1872  went  to  Trenton  with  nothing  but 
the  big  railroad  fight  to  engage  its  energies.  The 
Senate  contained  some  notable  men.  It  was  Repub- 
lican ;  in  fact,  both  Houses  were  Republican.  Edward  Bettle 
was  its  President;  John  W.  Taylor,  a  keen-eyed  Newark  law- 
yer, with  a  face  suggestive  of  Indian  lineage,  represented  Essex ;. 
John  R.  McPherson,  who  afterwards  became  one  of  the  most 
notable  figures  in  State  politics,  stood  sponsor  for  Hudson ;  Levi 
D.  Jarrard,  tall  and  slim,  florid,  with  blue  eyes  and  straight, 
sharp  nose — for  all  the  world  like  Andrew  Jackson  in  appear- 
ance and  manner — who,  during  his  several  terms  in  the  Senate,, 
legislated  himself  into  a  powerful  middle-State  boss,  and  event- 
ually into  the  State  Prison,  was  "  the  gentlemen  from  Middle- 
sex ;"  Augustus  W.  Cutler,  a  farmer-lawyer  from  Morristown, 
who  bad  in  a  large  degree  the  same  elements  of  popularity  that 
had  made  Joel  Parker  strong,  was  the  Morris  county  represen- 
tative ;  Hunterdon's  seat  was  filled  by  a  man  bearing  the  name 
of  Banghart,  which  another  engaged  in  the  new  railroad  lobby 
brought  into  unpleasant  notoriety  ;  and  Salem  was  made  notable 
by  the  presence  of  John  C.  Belden  as  her  spokesman  on  the 
floor. 

The  business  of  the  session  had  scarcely  begun  before  the 
railroad  giants  began  to  go  at  each  other.  General  Carse,  a 
military  orator  of  the  Assembly,  was  the  first  to  make  a  move 
in  the  battle  of  the  session.  Carse  had  been  a  conspicuous  and 
picturesque  figure  in  the  carpet-bag  era  of  politics  in  Florida- 
(48) 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  49 

Some  of  the  readers  of  this  volume  may  remember  that  he  was 
concerned  in  the  somewhat  violent  establishment  of  a  carpet-bag 
Legislature  of  that  State  during  the  reconstruction  period.  He 
was  a  fellow  of  superb  audacity,  and  perfectly  fearless — just 
the  man  to  take  the  sort  of  risks  which  the  leaders  of  the  oppo- 
sition to  the  general  railroad  law  were  required  to  face.  His 
shot  in  this  battle  was  in  the  form  of  a  resolution  calling  for  a 
committee  to  make  an  inquiry  into  the  terms  of  the  lease  of  the 
Joint  Companies  to  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company.  This 
was  followed  in  the  Senate  by  an  act  attacking  the  lease.  The 
spirit  that  it  was  hoped  to  arouse  by  these  hostile  movements 
was  revealed  by  Mr.  Cutler's  motion  in  the  Senate,  that  a 
majority  of  the  directors  in  the  leasing  concern  be  residents  of 
New  Jersey.  That  the  property  of  the  Joint  Companies  had 
gone  into  the  possession  of  a  syndicate  of  foreign  capitalists  was 
a  circumstance  employed  by  the  opponents  of  the  monopoly  as 
a  pretext  for  an  attack  upon  it.  Senator  McPherson  met  Mr. 
Cutler's  motion  with  the  suggestion  that  the  owners  of  a  stock 
company  should  not  be  disturbed  in  the  control  of  their  prop- 
erty, and  that  such  a  requirement  as  Senator  Cutler  had  insisted 
upon  would  discourage  foreign  capital  from  assisting  further  in 
the  development  of  the  State's  resources. 

The  Senate  bill  does  not  seem  to  have  got  beyond  the  stage 
of  second  reading,  and  General  Carse's  investigation  was  "  called 
off."  There  are  some  people  who  suspect  that  it  was  introduced 
for  that  very  purpose.  The  anti-monopoly  sentiment  of  the 
State  had,  however,  secured  a  firm  footing  in  the  Assembly, 
and  the  announcement  toward  the  close  of  March  that  the  Phila- 
delphia and  New  York  Railroad  had  boomed  its  bill  through 
the  House,  was  received  with  wild  acclaim  everywhere.  The 
promoters  of  the  bill  were  shrewd  enough  to  forestall  the  oppo- 
sition to  its  passage  that  the  corporation  whose  directory  was 
entirely  unknown  to  Jereeymen  might  make  to  it,  by  naming 
in  their  bill  as  the  incorporators  of  their  road,  a  list  replete 
with  names  familiar  to  all  Jerseymen,  and  the  act  was  en- 
thusiastically rushed  through  the  House  with  the  cry  that  it 
provided  for  Jerseymen  a  road  run  by  Jerseymen. 

4 


60  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

It  will  not  escape  notice  that  the  Assembly  act  proclaimed  in 
its  title  that  it  was  for  a  through  competing  line  between  Phila- 
delphia and  New  York.  A  more  secret  attempt  to  accomplish 
its  object  was  made  by  the  introduction  into  the  Senate  of  a 
bill  conferring  a  franchise  on  a  road  to  extend  ostensibly  from 
Flemington  to  Lambertville,  but  which,  by  the  linking  of 
other  authorized  lines  with  it,  was  to  complete  the  opposition 
route  between  the  two  cities.  Senator  McPherson  easily  guessed 
the  surreptitious  scheme  of  the  Senate  bill,  and  opposed  it  on  the 
ground  that  a  road  already  covered  that  route,  to  which  Senator 
Banghart  replied  that  it  did  not  accommodate  the  New  Jersey 
public.  Senator  Cutler,  and  Senators  Hewitt,  of  Mercer,  and 
Williams,  of  Passaic,  urged  the  passage  of  the  act.  Senators 
Taylor  and  Bettle  aided  Mr.  McPherson  in  arguing  against  it, 
and  it  was  lost  by  a  vote  of  six  to  nine.  That  vote  was  the 
forerunner  of  the  defeat  of  the  House  bill  when  it  reached  the 
Senate,  and  toward  the  close  of  March  the  Senate  refused  to 
pass  the  act. 

The  capital  was  filled  with  excitement  when  the  result  be- 
came known.  An  impromptu  demonstration  at  the  Trenton 
House  lauded  the  Senators  who  had  voted  for  the  bill;  and 
Barton,  who  had  introduced  it  into  the  Assembly,  was  given  a 
serenade.  There  was  some  humor  mixed  with  the  indignation 
with  which  the  failure  of  the  enterprise  for  the  year  was  received. 
When  Secretary  Sinnickson  Chew  stepped  in  front  of  the 
Speaker's  desk  to  announce  the  unwelcome  result  to  the  Assem- 
bly, Assemblyman  Fisher,  of  Middlesex,  fired  a  bright  quip  at 
the  stubborn  Senate : 

"Whereas,  The  Secretary  of  the  Senate  has  reported  to  this  House  that 
the  Senate  has  refused  to  pass  the  Philadelphia  and  New  York  Eailroad 
bill ;  therefore,  be  it 
"  Resolved,  That  tlie  Clerk  of  this  House  be  requested  to  inquire  of  the  Sec- 
retary of  the  Senate  why  the  Senate  refused  to  pass  the  same." 

The  sentiment  against  the  continued  domination  of  the 
monopoly  that  had  fallen  into  foreign  hands,  grew  apace,  how- 
ever, and  by  the  time  the  Legislature  of  1873  assembled  it  had 
acquired  enormous  force. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


51 


As  in  1872,  both  Houses  were  again  Republican.  The  selec- 
tion of  John  W.  Taylor  to  its  Presidency  was  an  evidence  that 
the  Senate  was  still 
within  the  grasp  of 
the  old  monopoly ;  the 
choice  of  Isaac  L. 
Fisher,  of  Middlesex, 
to  the  Speakership,  was 
the  sign  of  the  prev- 
alence of  an  opposi- 
tion sentiment  there, 
and  it  was  evident  at 
the  very  opening  of 
the  session  that  the  two 
Houses  were  destined 
to  lock  horns  in  one 
of  the  greatest  railroad 
struggles  in  all  the 
State's  history. 

Among  others  who  went  to  Trenton  to  represent  one  of  the 
constituencies  in  the  State,  was  a  quiet  and  unassuming  little 
farmer  from  Morris.  "  The  boys  "  all  called  him  "  Gus ; "  in 
official  verbiage  he  was  known  as  Assemblyman  Canfield.  He 
had  scarcely  taken  his  seat  in  the  House  before  he  sent  to  the 
Clerk's  desk  a  little  act  which  the  newspaper  correspondents, 
when  they  saw  it,  dismissed  with  a  line,  but  which  in  the  end 
became  the  absorbing  topic  of  the  session.  It  authorized  any 
thirteen  persons  to  form  a  railroad  company  under  certain  arti- 
cles of  association  to  be  filed  in  the  Secretary  of  State's  office, 
when  capital  stock  to  the  value  of  $  1 ,000  for  every  mile  of  rail- 
road projected  by  them  had  been  subscribed.  Its  importance 
was  overshadowed  by  the  presence  on  the  files  of  another  act 
aimed  more  directly  at  the  mark.  This  second  act  was  for  the 
incorporation  of  the  New  York  and  Philadelphia  Railroad 
Company ;  and  it  authorized  a  number  of  well-known  opera- 
tors— among  them,  George  Richards,  Cortlandt  Parker,  John 
B.  Cecil,  Samuel  C.  Forker,  A.  C.  Cadwallader,  A.  P.  Ber- 


Isaac  L.  Fisher. 


52  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

thoud,  G.  N.  Abeel,  William  Walter  Phelps,  Abram  S.  Hewitt,. 
Charles  K.  Landis,  Abraham  Browning  and  Amos  Clark — to 
construct  "a  safe  and  substantial  line  of  communication  across 
the  State."  The  capital  was  fixed  at  $7,000,000,  and  the  route 
was  to  be  over  the  line  from  Bound  Brook  to  Trenton. 

Canfield's  act  was  sent  to  the  committee  and  held  there  with 
an  indifference  born  of  the  idea  that  it  had  no  necessary  relation 
to  the  great  fight  on  hand.  Men  forgot  all  about  it,  while  an 
enormous  and  picturesque  lobby  struggled  over  the  less  sweep- 
ing bills  that  went  straight  to  the  core  of  the  issue. 

That  lobby,  and  its  methods  and  extravagances  !  There  were 
old  George  Dorrance,  veteran  legislation  manipulator,  and  cool, 
keen,  black- eyed  Culver  Barcalow,  handsome  in  spite  of  his 
drooping  eyelid,  to  conduct  the  difficult  defensive  battle  on  the 
part  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad.  Culver  Barcalow,  the 
keener  and  busier  of  the  two,  was  the  very  antipode  of  Johnson 
Banghart,  the  active  head  of  the  attacking  forces — ostensibly  the 
counsel  of  the  Air  Line,  really  its  lobbyist — dashing  of  manner, 
loquacious,  loud-voiced,  tall,  straight,  of  full  habit,  and  strut- 
ting, gaudy  and  showy  in  dress,  with  streaming  neckwear  of 
brilliant  hues,  and  diamonds  gleaming  from  breast  and  fingers ; 
Barcalow,  on  the  other  hand,  smooth,  quiet,  polite,  insinuating, 
always  attired  in  suit  of  sleekest  black  of  perfect  cut  and  hang, 
with  a  single  unobtrusive  glint  in  his  spotless  shirt  front. 

The  lugubrious  Henry  M.  Hamilton,  of  polished  manners  and 
scholastic  finish,  whose  tall  form  in  long  coat  buttoned  close  to 
the  neck,  gave  him  the  air  of  a  country  parson,  was  the  gorgeous 
Banghart's  associate  and  chief.  He  had  made  himself  the  central 
figure  in  a  syndicate  that  had  purchased  acres  and  acres  of  prop- 
erty on  the  line  of  the  new  road,  and  was  looking  forward  with 
hungry  anticipation  to  the  time  when  the  building  of  the  line 
would  bring  these  speculative  possessions  of  his  into  the  market 
and  turn  them  into  gold.  And  with  them — short,  slim,  ner- 
vous, light-haired  and  pale-faced — was  Delos  E.  Culver,  a 
plunging  New  York  speculator  and  contractor,  who  was  quoted 
as  having  millions  within  his  reach,  and  whose  brother,  Isaac 
B.,  stood  for  him  in  the  new  directory.    E.  C.  Knight,  who 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  53 

had  been  a  director  in  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  associated 
himself  with  them ;  and  Samuel  K.  Wilson,  of  Trenton,  made 
himself  conspicuous  by  the  zeal  with  which  he  espoused  the 
interests  of  the  new  line.  Another  active  and  influential  parti- 
san of  the  scheme  was  Lewis  R.  Taylor,  of  the  Taylor  Iron 
Works  of  High  Bridge,  a  man  of  considerable  fortune  and  wide 
family  relations,  whose  cool  sagacity  and  indomitable  resolu- 
tion were  of  great  service  in  the  struggle. 

Assisting  the  chiefs  on  either  side  in  their  strategic  warfare, 
swarms  of  satellites,  buttonholing  members,  carrying  messages, 
"seeing  men,"  fluttered  hither  and  thither;  corks  popped  at  the 
bars,  sumptuous  dinners  at  the  big  hotels,  wine  banquets  lasting 
till  the  early  hours  of  dawn,  terrapin  and  steamed  oysters  on 
demand  in  every  basement — it  was  an  endless  revelry  for  the 
men  with  votes  worth  having  and  palates  worth  tickling. 

To  further  counteract  the  efforts  of  the  Philadelphia  and  New 
York  Railroad  people,  so  much  of  the  press  as  was  controlled 
by  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  and  the  company's  hired  orators 
everywhere  began  to  clamor  for  the  passage  of  a  general  rail- 
road law. 

"  If  a  competing  line  between  New  York  and  Philadelphia  is 
to  be  built,"  was  the  run  of  their  argument,  "  why  not  make  it 
possible  for  any  syndicate  to  construct  it  ?  Why  confer  so  val- 
uable a  franchise  upon  a  particular  lot  of  men  ?  Throw  the 
gates  open  to  anybody  who  desires  to  build  one.  And  besides, 
our  railroad  laws  are  too  exclusive  anyhow,  and  too  limited  in 
their  operations.  Why  not  throw  the  whole  State  open  to  capi- 
talists who  desire  to  spend  their  money  in  the  development  of 
her  resources  ?  Instead  of  conferring  a  little  franchise  here  and 
a  little  franchise  there,  let  us  make  it  possible  for  anybody  to 
build  a  railroad  wherever  a  railroad  is  wanted.  If  railroads  are 
beneficial  to  the  State,  the  more  of  them  the  better,  and  the 
freer  the  franchise  the  larger  the  number  of  them  that  will  be 
built." 

These  arguments,  especially  intended  to  act  as  buffers  for  the 
growing  public  sentiment  for  the  chartering  of  the  new  road, 
struck  a  popular  chord,  and  it  was  not  many  weeks  before  the 


54  MODERN  BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 

State  was  quite  thoroughly  convinced  that  they  pointed  out  a 
very  admirable  solution  of  the  whole  problem.  They  did  not^ 
however,  have  any  immediately  perceptible  effect  upon  the 
treatment  of  the  question  by  the  two  Chambers  of  the  Legisla- 
ture. Each  branch  adhered  to  the  particular  bill  that  had  been 
framed  for  it,  conferring  the  same  franchise  upon  two  antago- 
nistic corporations,  and  devoted  all  its  time  to  its  passage. 

The  New  York  and  Philadelphia  Railroad  bill  was  called  up 
on  a  second  reading  in  the  House  near  the  end  of  January. 
General  Carse  sprang  to  the  front  at  once  with  a  motion  that  it 
be  laid  over  till  the  following  Tuesday.  Assemblyman  Frank 
Ward — the  Bald  Eagle  of  Sussex — speaking  for  the  motion,  de- 
clared that  the  bill  was  being  rushed  through  in  a  most  shame- 
less manner,  and  urged  that  the  members  be  allowed  an  oppor- 
tunity before  voting  on  it  to  acquaint  themselves  with  the  char- 
acter of  some  amendments  the  committee  had  incorporated 
in  it.  One  of  the  allurements  held  before  the  Legislature  for 
its  favor  was  a  proposed  gift  of  a  half  million  dollars  to  the  State 
for  the  franchise,  and  Canfield  explained  with  some  warmth 
that  the  only  change  made  in  the  committee  was  one  devoting 
the  half  million  dollars  to  the  State  School  Fund.  Assemblyman 
Garret  A.  Hobart,  of  Passaic,  went  into  more  elaborate  expla- 
nations of  the  character  and  effect  of  the  amendments,  and 
diverging  into  a  little  disquisition  about  the  much-talked- of  free 
railroad  law,  declared  that  it  had  been  agitated  for  five  years^ 
and  that  the  House  was  as  well  posted  then  as  it  would  be  in  the 
five  years  to  come.  George  Patterson,  of  Monmouth,  announced 
himself  "  prepared  to  vote  for  such  a  noble  bill  as  this."  In 
spite  of  all  their  efforts  to  advance  the  measure  on  the  calendar. 
General  Carse's  motion  was  agreed  to  (29-24),  and  when  Tues- 
day came,  Mr.  Macknet  had  it  put  back  in  the  Committee  on 
Corporations.  The  next  day  the  committee  gave  it  a  hearing,, 
with  a  vast  throng  of  interested  citizens  in  attendance.  J.  Dag- 
gett Hunt  was  there  to  make  one  of  his  characteristic  speeches 
in  favor  of  a  general  railroad  law,  but  was  crowded  out  to  make 
way  for  Cortlandt  Parker  and  B.  W.  Throckmorton,  who  spoke 
for  the  bill  itself. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


55 


While  legislation  was  in  this  shape,  Vice  Chancellor  Amzi 
Dodd  accidently  threw  fresh  fuel  into  the  anti- monopoly  flame. 

The  Legislature  of  1872  had  passed  an  act  naming  George 
Richards,  Isaac  B.  Jolly,  Edward  Canfield,  William  Allison, 
William  Jackson  and  others  as  the  Stanhope  Railroad  Com- 
pany. Stanhope  is  a  small  mining  settlement  in  the  Morris 
mountains;  and,  on  the  faith  of  its  promoters'  assurances  that  it 
merely  conferred  a 
franchise  on  a  little  ore 
road  up  in  Morris,  the 
act  floated  along  with 
other  legislative  drift- 
wood of  the  session  to 
the  statute  books  as 
something  harmless. 
When,  however.  Secre- 
tary of  State  Kelsey's 
office  began  to  be  be- 
sieged by  those  who 
had  been  known  for 
their  conspicuousness 
in  the  National  Rail- 
way controversy,  for 
scores  of  certified  copies 
of  the  act,  suspicion  was 
aroused,  and  the  Penn- 
sylvania officials  began 
to  smell  a  mouse. 

Upon  an  examination  of  the  act,  they  discovered  to  their  sur- 
prise that  one  section  of  it,  the  eighth,  conferred  upon  a  lot  of 
little  roads  the  right  to  consolidate  themselves  into  a  competing 
line  between  New  York  and  Philadelphia.  When  Dorrance  and 
Barcalow  were  summoned  to  the  offices  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  Company  for  explanations,  they  declared  by  all  that 
was  good  that  that  eighth  section  had  not  been  in  the  bill  at 
any  stage  of  its  progress  through  the  Houses,  and  that  it  must 


Amzi  Dodd. 


56  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

have  been  smuggled  into  it  dishonestly.  Its  purpose  became 
the  more  manifest  when  Hamilton,  Culver,  Banghart,  and 
the  rest  assigned  the  franchises  it  conferred  upon  them  to  a  line 
of  leagued  roads  under  the  style  and  title  of  the  National  Rail- 
way Company,  and  work  on  the  construction  of  a  New  York 
and  Philadelphia  line  in  competition  with  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  was  begun. 

The  attention  of  Governor  Parker  had  been  called  to  the  act 
by  this  time,  and  on  the  last  day  of  April  he  indited  a  letter  to 
Edward  Bettle,  the  President  of  the  Senate,  and  Speaker  Niles, 
of  the  Assembly,  advising  that  as  each  had  certified  the  bill  to 
him  as  having  been  passed  by  the  Houses  over  which  they 
respectively  presided,  they  owed  it  to  themselves  and  to  the  public 
to  institute  an  investigation,  "  and  if  it  be  found  that  an  inter- 
polation was  fraudulently  made,  to  inquire  how  and  by  whom 
it  was  accomplished  and  to  publish  the  facts." 

Three  days  later  both  Mr.  Bettle  and  Mr.  Niles  joined  in  a 
letter  responding  to  the  Governor's  inquiry.  They  declared 
that  "  the  manuscript  copy  of  the  bill  as  introduced  into  the 
House  and  now  on  file,  has  been  by  us  carefully  examined,  and 
we  find  that  the  bill  certified  as  having  passed  in  our  respective 
Houses  contains  provisions  not  in  the  original  bill.  The  eighth 
section  of  the  bill,  as  filed  in  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  State, 
differs  materially  from  the  same  section  of  the  original  bill.  An 
addition  has  been  made  to  the  section  greater  in  length  than  the 
section  itself  as  introduced,  which  addition  purports  to  give  the 
company  much  greater  powers  than  did  the  original  bill.  This 
addition  was  surreptitiously  and  fraudulently  interpolated,  and 
the  proof  of  such  fraud  and  interpolation  is  the  fact  that  the 
original  bill  in  its  eighth  section  contained  no  such  provision, 
and  that  in  no  stage  of  its  progress  in  either  House  was  any 
amendment,  alteration  or  addition  made  or  offered.  The  bill  in 
question,  therefore,  while  apparently  receiving  the  sanction  of 
both  Houses  and  the  approval  of  your  Excellency,  never  in 
reality  passed  either  House." 

Through  Isaac  W.  Scudder,  a  fat  and  jolly  Jersey  City  law- 
yer, who  was  the  company's  chief  legal  adviser,  the  Pennsyl- 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  57 

vania  Railroad  Company  applied  for  an  injunction  restraining 
the  men  responsible  for  the  fraud  from  reaping  the  benefit  they 
had  expected  from  it,  and  enjoining  them  from  continuing  the 
movement  looking  to  the  establishment  of  the  projected  new 
through  route  between  New  York  and  Philadelphia.  Chancel- 
lor Zabriskie  was  in  Europe  at  the  time,  and  the  application 
was  made  to  Amzi  Dodd,  the  Vice  Chancellor,  the  peer  of  the 
Chancellor  in  legal  skill  and  learning.  The  hearing  extended 
over  several  months. 

The  Pennsylvania  Company  produced  proofs  in  support  of 
its  theory  that  the  bill  had  been  tampered  with  and  the  preg- 
nant and  vital  clause  fraudulently  interpolated  while  it  wag  in 
transit  from  the  Governor's  office,  after  signature,  to  Secretary 
of  State  Kelsey's  department  for  filing  as  a  statute  of  the  State ; 
and  of  the  allegation  in  its  pleadings  that  Hamilton,  "  on  behalf 
of  himself  and  some  of  his  confederates,"  demanded  of  the 
National  Railway  Company,  and  received  from  it,  the  sum  of 
$162,800  which  "had  been  paid  out  by  them  to  procure  the 
passage"  of  the  act  in  question.  This  money,  the  petition  of 
the  railroad  company  further  alleged,  was  divided  by  Hamilton 
with  some  of  the  Commissioners  named  in  the  act  incorporating 
the  Stanhope  Road,  and  with  "  certain  members  and  officers  of 
the  New  Jersey  Legislature." 

Vice  Chancellor  Dodd's  chambers,  the  morning  he  read  his 
opinion,  were  crowded  to  suffiacation  by  interested  railroad  men. 
He  took  the  advanced  ground  that  a  surreptitious  bill  establish- 
ing a  spur  between  the  two  completed  ends  of  the  competing 
roads,  could  not  confer  a  franchise  to  run  cars  over  the  State 
from  Philadelphia  to  New  York ;  that  unless  the  Legislature 
understood  that  the  purpose  of  the  bill  was  to  establish  a 
through  route  between  the  two  cities,  its  grant  of  a  franchise  to 
a  little  local  road  could  not  be  effective  to  that  end ;  in  other 
words,  that  if  the  Philadelphia  and  New  York  Railroad  wanted 
to  establish  a  through  route,  any  bill  through  which  it  sought 
that  privilege  must  be  thoroughly  understood  by  the  Legisla- 
ture and  the  Governor  of  the  State  as  conferring   it,  and   no 


58  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

secret  attempt  to  steal  the  franchise  under  cover  of  clothing  a 
little  local  road  with  life  would  be  allowed  to  succeed. 

The  excitement  created  by  the  decision  was  simply  enormous. 
Coming  right  on  the  eve  of  the  decisive  battle  between  the  two 
corporations  in  the  halls  of  the  Legislature,  its  importance  may 
be  imagined,  but  its  effect  can  scarcely  be  described.  The  Vice 
Chancellor  was  praised  and  denounced  by  turns — commended 
for  having  stamped  on  a  vicious  abuse  of  the  State's  highest  pre- 
rogative, and  denounced  by  the  cheated  men  who  had  expected 
to  profit  by  the  fraud.  He  was  bombarded  with  anonymous 
letters.  His  enemies  sent  copies  of  unfavorable  papers  to  his 
wife.  He  was  portrayed  in  cartoons,  and  charged  with  having 
been  influenced  by  financial  considerations  to  favor  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad  Company. 

His  decision  helped  to  give  new  force  to  the  drift  of  public 
sentiment.  The  people  had  been  impatient  of  the  monopoly 
that  sought  to  keep  every  competing  line  out  of  the  State,  and 
their  sympathies  had  been  given  in  large  measure  to  those  inter- 
ested in  the  new  line  movement.  But  the  suspicions  with  which 
the  revelations  made  during  the  course  of  this  litigation  had 
covered  them,  now  made  them  also  objects  of  distrust.  The 
Commonwealth  began  to  feel  that  it  could  not  safely  look  for 
relief  to  a  band  of  men  who  did  not  scruple  to  resort  to  crime  to 
attain  their  ends.  The  only  escape  from  these  legislative  ban- 
dits on  the  one  side,  and  the  legislative  monopoly  on  the  other, 
was  a  bill  that  should  favor  no  road,  but  open  the  way  for  the 
use  of  the  soil  to  all  roads  with  wise  restrictions;  and,  so,  an 
enormous  impulse  was  given  to  the  demand  for  a  free  and  general 
railroad  enactment. 

It  was  while  this  wave  of  popular  excitement  and  agitation 
was  rolling  over  the  State  that  the  National  Railway  bill, 
or  the  Philadelphia  and  New  York  bill,  as  it  was  variously 
called,  was  to  be  given  a  hearing  before  the  committee  to 
which  Mr.  Macknet  had  had  it  recommitted.  The  Assembly 
Chamber  was  filled  with  an  excited  populace  at  the  hour  fixed 
for  the  discussion.  The  committee,  for  some  reason,  failed  to 
put  in  an  appearance,  and  the  impatient  throng  began  to  clamor 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  59 

for  speeches  by  some  of  the  noted  men  who  were  seen  in  the 
crowd.  Daggett  Hunt,  the  most  magnetic  talker  of  them  all, 
was  lifted  on  the  shoulders  of  a  party  of  men,  carried  to  the 
Speaker's  chair  and  called  upon  for  an  address.  His  impas- 
sioned oratory  evoked  a  wild  applause  that  made  the  building 
tremble.  It  was  for  a  general  railroad  law  that  he  spoke.  If 
railroads  were  necessary  to  build  up  the  State,  the  franchise 
should  be  free  as  air. 

"  I  would  take  every  railroad  bill,"  he  thundered,  while  the 
crowd  broke  into  tumults  of  applause,  "  and  put  it  in  the  waste 
basket  till  a  vote  is  taken  on  the  General  Railroad  bill." 

The  next  day  the  Philadelphia  and  New  York  bill  was  called 
up  in  the  Assembly  for  a  second  reading  again.  Ward  led  the 
fight  against  it  and  was  well  seconded  by  Schultze  and  Morrow. 
The  plea  they  interposed  to  block  its  passage  was  for  the  elimi- 
nation from  the  list  of  incorporators  of  the  name  of  every  man 
not  a  Jergeyman,  and  Ward  called  the  |500,000  gift  to  the  State 
School  Fund  a  bribe.  Canfield  and  Hobart  made  a  gallant 
fight,  however,  for  the  advancement  of  the  bill ;  and,  all  the 
efforts  of  its  enemies  to  amend  it  out  of  shape  defeated,  it  was 
ordered  to  a  third  reading  in  the  form  in  which  it  had  come 
from  the  committee.  Three  days  later  it  passed  the  House  by 
an  overwhelming  majority.  Assemblymen  Anderson,  Barnes, 
Carpenter,  Caree,  Cooley,  Farrier,  Foreman,  Lee,  Plympton, 
Reardon,  Schultze,  Ward  and  Whittaker,  were  the  little  hand- 
ful of  thirteen  who  felt  it  safe  to  oppose  it. 

Preparations  were  made,  of  course,  to  rush  the  bill  over  into 
the  Senate  and  force  the  corporation  adherents  over  there  to  deal 
with  it.  But  by  the  time  it  reached  the  Secretary's  desk  they 
had  anticipated  its  arrival  by  pushing  forward  the  counter  act 
known  as  the  New  Jersey  Railroad  act,  and  authorizing  the 
running  of  trains  over  the  same  territory  covered  by  the  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  bill,  but  under  the  auspices  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  stockholders. 

Late  in  the  night  of  the  same  day  on  which  the  House  bill 
passed,  the  Senate  called  up  this  decoy  measure  for  final  passage. 
The  Constitution  exacted  thirty  days'  preliminary  notice  in  the 


€0  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

newspapers  of  the  inteation  to  apply  for  legislation  of  this 
special  character.  As  the  bill  was  an  after- thought,  devised  in 
a  sudden  burst  of  inventive  ardor  only  to  ofifset  the  clamor  for 
the  competing  line  bill,  that  notice  of  the  New  Jersey  Railroad 
act  could  not  be  produced.  The  men  in  the  Pennsylvania's 
lobby  were  not  of  the  kind  to  let  a  trifling  constitutional  bar 
like  that  stand  in  the  railroad's  way;  and  to  give  their  bill  a 
semblance  of  regularity  they  slyly  appropriated  the  advertised 
notice  of  another  bill  and  compelled  it  to  do  service  for  the 
emergency.  Senator  Sewell,  himself  a  conspicuous  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad  man,  admitted  with  characteristic  frankness, 
when  the  omission  was  called  to  the  attention  of  the  Senate, 
that  the  expedient  had  been  resorted  to ;  but  Senator  McPher- 
son  made  a  grand  appeal  to  the  chivalry  of  his  colleagues  when 
he  argued  that  it  was  an  imputation  on  the  integrity  of  the 
committee  that  had  reported  the  bill  as  having  gone  through  all 
the  necessary  formalities,  to  intimate  that  it  had  not.  The  Sen- 
ate followed  the  lead  of  these  two  conspicuous  advocates  and 
condoned  all  the  irregularities  that  had  marked  the  birth  of  the 
measure,  and  while  the  crowd  on  the  floor  and  in  the  galleries 
looked  on  with  bated  breath,  put  it  through  its  stage  of  final 
passage  just  as  the  hands  of  the  big  clock  over  the  Senate  door 
marked  the  hour  of  midnight. 

Of  course  the  fact  that  the  Senate  had  disingenuously  com- 
mitted itself  to  the  enactment  of  the  decoy  bill  did  not  prevent 
the  friends  of  the  Philadelphia  and  New  York  bill  from  urging 
the  passage  of  their  act  in  that  body.  The  familiar  expedient 
of  smothering  the  bill  in  the  Committee  on  Railroads  and  Canals 
was  employed,  till  Senator  Hewitt  rose  in  his  place  to  demand 
that  the  committee  report  it  to  the  Senate  for  action.  It  hap- 
pened that  Senator  Hopkins,  Chairman  of  the  committee,  and 
Senator  Jarrard,  another  of  its  members,  were  absent  at  the 
time,  and  there  seemed  to  be  some  question  as  to  whether  the 
bill  could  be  produced.  It  was  suspected  that  Hopkins  was 
purposely  absenting  himself  with  the  bill  in  his  pocket.  The 
event  proved  that  the  suspicion,  while  not  exactly  unjust,  was 
not  just  exact.     He  had  left  it  in  the  hands  of  Senate  Secretary 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  61 

Babcock,  but  with  instructions  to  Babcock  "  not  to  let  it  get 
out."  Sewell,  Stone  and  McPherson  went  to  the  defense  of  the 
committee,  and  Hewitt's  resolution  was  toned  down  so  that  it 
softly  "  requested,"  instead  of  savagely  "  instructed  "  the  com- 
mittee to  present  it  to  the  Chamber.  And  so,  in  spite  of  Hop- 
kins' directions  to  Babcock  "  not  to  let  it  get  out,"  the  bill  did 
get  out,  and  was  put  upon  the  calendar  and  progressed  to  a 
third  reading. 

On  the  4th  of  March  it  was  called  up  on  final  passage. 
Hewitt,  of  Mercer,  made  a  warm  speech  for  it,  and  Cutler,  of 
Morris,  also  advocated  it  vigorously.  McPherson  was  against 
it,  because  he  was  in  favor  of  conferring  these  franchises  by  a 
general  railroad  bill,  and  not  by  one  that  conferred  special  fran- 
chises on  a  party  of  operators  who  had  been  guilty  of  the  Stan- 
hope frauds. 

"  If  they  should  demand  the  passage  of  this  bill,"  he  said,  "  I 
should  say  that  it  was  beneath  the  dignity  of  a  Senator  to  give 
them,  as  a  matter  of  justice,  what  they  have  only  failed  to 
obtain  by  fraud  and  stealth." 

Senator  Stone,  of  Union,  who  favored  the  bill,  was  yet  forced 
to  admit  that  some  of  the  parties  agitating  for  it  should  be  in 
the  State  Prison,  but  he  thought  he  made  things  even  for  them 
when,  in  the  next  breath,  he  declared  that  he  could  say  the 
same  thing  of  some  who  were  opposing  the  bill.  Mr.  Williams 
could  not  understand  this  new-born  zeal  for  a  general  railroad 
law.  It  had  not  shown  itself  till  this  bill  came  into  the  Senafe, 
and  when  its  fate  was  decided  he  had  no  doubt  that  they  would 
hear  no  more  of  general  railroad  laws.  The  vote  was  taken 
while  great  throngs  in  the  galleries  and  on  the  floor  listened  to 
the  responses  with  eager  interest.  "  Cul "  Barcalow,  in  the 
shadow  of  one  of  the  columns  that  towered  alongside  of  the 
President's  desk,  and  Dorrance,  in  the  shadow  of  that  on  the 
other  side,  took  mental  note  of  the  vote.  As  they  had  assured 
themselves  before  the  roll-call  was  commenced,  the  act  lacked 
one  of  the  eleven  "  ayes  "  needed  to  pass  it.  Senators  Banghart, 
Joe  Cornish,  Cutler,  Havens,  Hendrickson,  Hewitt,  Stone, 
Taylor,  Williams  and  Wood  responded  in  the  affirmative.    The 


62  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

eleven  whose  Days  defeated  it  were  Beesley,  Edsall,  Hopkins, 
Irick,  Jarrard,  Ly decker,  McPherson,  Moore,  Newkirk,  Sewell 
and  Shepherd. 

The  scene  that  ensued  the  announcement  of  the  result  beggars 
description.  Barcalow  and  Dorrance  deemed  it  prudent  to  dis- 
appear from  view,  while  the  air  became  vocal  with  denuncia- 
tions of  those  who  had  been  instrumental  in  defeating  the  act. 
Hisses  mingled  with  cheers  from  the  crowd  in  the  gallery,  and 
some  one  shouted  "Kill  him!  Kill  him!"  at  oneof  the  Senators 
whom  an  angry  man  in  the  crowd  had  bearded  at  his  very  desk. 
Popular  frenzy  was  directed  with  special  energy  against  the 
bulky  Ly  decker,  who  represented  Bergen  county  in  the  Senate, 
and  he  had  to  ask  the  protection  of  a  lobbyist,  who  saw  him 
safely  through  side  streets  to  his  hotel. 

Edsall  was  also  an  uncertain  quantity  through  it  all.  The 
National  Railway  people  claimed  that  he  was  ready  to  act  with 
them ;  and  at  one  time  when,  with  his  vote,  the  passage  of  the 
bill  seemed  imminent,  President  Bettle  forestalled  it  by  declar- 
ing an  adjournment  without  even  waiting  for  the  formality  of  a 
motion.  They  say,  however,  that  their  apparent  ability  to  pass 
the  bill  drove  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  into  offers 
of  compromise;  that  an  agreement  was  reached  between  the 
managers  of  both,  even  before  the  bill  was  defeated,  that  both 
should  aid  in  the  passage  of  a  general  railroad  law,  and  that  the 
defeat  of  the  bill  by  the  Senate  was  but  an  empty  formality  that 
had  been  prearranged  between  them. 

Whatever  the  fact  about  this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  the  ad- 
vocacy of  the  general  railroad  law  by  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
as  an  offset  to  the  growing  strength  of  its  rival,  logically  com- 
mitted it  to  aid  in  the  passage  of  such  an  act.  The  day  follow- 
ing the  defeat  of  the  National's  bill,  that  retiring  little  railroad 
act,  which  the  modest  Canfield  had  quietly  committed  to  the 
House  Committee  on  Corporations  at  the  opening  of  the  session, 
was  dragged  like  a  legislative  Lazarus  from  its  committee  tomb 
into  the  arena,  rushed  upon  the  calendar  and  whooped  through 
the  Assembly  with  a  hurrah.  With  the  exception  of  Reardon 
and  Foreman,  every  member  of  the  House  gave  it  his  vote. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF  TRENTON.  63 

The  galleries  broke  into  cheers  so  prolonged  that  a  recess  was 
found  necessary  to  let  the  pent-up  enthusiasm  of  the  spectators 
spend  itself;  and  on  re  assembling  after  the  tumult  had  subsided, 
Andrew  Jackson  Smith,  a  consequential  Mercer  member, 
aroused  the  echoes  afresh  by  the  oifer  of  a  resolution  directing 
the  Adjutant-General  to  furnish  ordnance  for  the  firing  of  a 
hundred  guns  on  the  "  green  "  in  front  of  the  State  House  in 
honor  of  the  victory.  Even  if  it  had  not  entered  into  the 
arrangement  claimed  by  the  National  men  to  have  been  made, 
the  Senate  could  not  stand  stiff  against  so  overwhelming  a  dem- 
onstration, and  five  days  later  it,  too,  passed  the  bill  by  unani- 
mous vote.  It  was  hastened  to  the  Governor.  He  appended 
his  signature  to  it  after  it  had  been  compared,  and  by  the 
12th  of  March  it  had  become  the  law  of  the  State.  Forty 
minutes  later  the  National  Railway  Company  filed  its  notice 
under  the  act  and  took  the  franchise  which  for  five  years  it  had 
been  so  savagely  struggling  to  secure. 

The  State  hailed  the  placing  of  her  franchise  at  the  disposal 
of  all  who  were  able  to  assist  in  the  development  of  her 
resources  as  a  new  earnest  of  prosperity  and  went  wild  with  joy. 
Trenton  was  filled  with  brass  bands  and  the  hotels  were 
besieged  by  enthusiastic  throngs.  Canfield  was  called  from  his 
bed  in  his  night-dress  to  make  responses  to  one  serenading  party 
after  another  till  daylight  came.  There  were  music  and  cheers 
for  all  the  men  who  had  been  conspicuous  in  their  advocacy  of  the 
bill.  Hamilton  opened  the  wine  cellars  of  the  Trenton  House 
to  all  comers ;  and  the  hundred  guns  for  which  Andrew  Jack- 
son Smith's  resolution  had  called,  belched  the  glad  tidings 
across  the  Delaware  into  the  wilds  of  Bucks  county.  Jubilee 
meetings  were  held  in  almost  every  town  and  village.  An 
especially  noticeable  one  filled  Taylor's  Hall  in  Trenton  three 
days  later  from  pit  to  dome.  Daggett  Hunt,  who  had  been  the 
most  eloquent  advocate  of  the  new  policy,  was  the  lion  of  the 
hour  at  this  gathering  Joseph  C.  Potts,  ex  Governor  Rodman 
M.  Price  and  B.  W.  Throckmorton  followed  him  in  felicitating 
speeches.     Frederick  Kingman,  one  of  the  most  ardent  of  the 


64  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

local  promoters  of  the  triumphant  measure,  presided  at  the 
memorable  gathering. 

What  is  now  known  as  the  New  York  and  Bound  Brook 
Railroad  was  the  outcome  of  the  efforts  of  the  National  Railway 
syndicate.  The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  fought  its  construction 
at  every  step.  Preparations  were  under  way  at  that  time  for 
the  pretentious  observance,  in  1876,  of  the  National  Centennial 
by  a  great  exhibition  of  the  nation's  industries  at  Philadelphia, 
and  the  struggle  between  the  two  great  corporations  became  one 
for  the  expected  traffic  which  that  exposition  was  sure  to  invite 
between  New  York  and  the  Pennsylvania  metropolis.  The 
National  Company  hastened  forward  with  its  work  to  open  its 
road  in  time  for  the  great  year  of  travel.  Whenever  it  was 
possible  for  the  older  company  to  stick  in  an  injunction  or  other 
court  process  for  delay,  it  was  done.  The  two  roads  came  into 
violent  collision  at  a  point  near  Pennington,  where  the  new 
road  projected  a  crossing  of  the  bed  of  the  old  road.  Locomo- 
tives were  run  up  to  the  point  of  intersection,  and  stationed 
there  to  block  the  insertion  of  the  needed  frog.  The  em- 
ployes of  the  two  roads  engaged  in  battles,  with  stones  and 
crowbars  and  hammers  for  their  weapons,  and  the  public  peace 
was  so  seriously  menaced  that  it  became  necessary  for  the  Gov- 
ernor to  call  out  the  militia  for  its  preservation.  The  frog  was 
inserted  under  the  protection  of  the  State's  arms,  and  the  pro- 
jectors of  the  new  line  went  on  with  the  extension  of  their 
tracks  towards  Philadelphia. 

At  the  Delaware  river  the  new  company  met  another  obstacle. 
The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  believed  that  it  had  suc- 
ceeded in  having  the  General  Railroad  law  so  framed  as  to  make 
it  impossible  for  the  new  company  to  carry  its  road  over  the 
State's  riparian  land  beneath  the  surface  of  that  stream.  There 
was  a  cross- war  of  injunctions  and  petitions  and  everything  else 
in  the  legal  line  between  them  that  ended  in  a  decision  favorable 
to  the  National  Railroad  Company,  and  its  connection  between 
New  York  and  Philadelphia  was  finally  completed. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  65 

The  triumph  of  the  free- railroad  idea,  as  determined  in  this 
contest,  initiated  a  new  era,  not  only  in  railroad  legislation  in 
New  Jersey,  but  to  a  large  extent,  also,  in  political  relations. 
The  old  Camden  and  Amboy  idea  was  from  that  time  abso- 
lutely eliminated.  The  Pennsylvania  management  was  com- 
pelled to  recognize  the  new  conditions,  and  while  it  maintained 
an  active  lobby  during  legislative  sessions,  it  was  not  able  to 
exert,  during  ordinary  political  campaigns,  that  close  supervision 
of  counties  and  neighborhoods  which  had  been  formerly  exer- 
cised by  the  Camden  and  Amboy  regime,  under  which  every 
candidate,  Judge,  Sheriff,  Constable,  or  political  leader  in  the 
State,  was  more  or  less  actively  retained  in  that  interest. 

5 


CHAPTER   VI. 

In  Which  the  Steps  by  Which  the  State  Acquired  Title  to  Under- 
water Lands  are  Traced,  and  the  Story  of  the  Establish- 
ment OF  Her  Free  School  Fund  is  Told. 


JMPLICATED  with  these  questions  of  monopoly  rights 
and  exclusive  franchises  and  transit  duties  were  others 
of  equal  importance  and  interest  growing  out  of  the 
ownership  of  the  shore  front.  A  dispute  between  the 
States  of  New  York  and  New  Jersey  over  the  boundary  line 
between  the  two  States  in  the  Hudson  river,  precipitated  a  dis- 
cussion that  brought  the  whole  question  of  the  ownership  of 
underwater  rights  to  the  attention  of  the  public.  Half  a  cen- 
tury or  more  ago  the  Legislature  of  New  York  granted  to  a 
man  named  Gibbons  the  sole  right  of  using  the  Hudson  river 
for  traffic  purposes  between  New  York  and  Albany.  For  the 
greater  part  of  its  course  the  Hudson  river  lies  within  the  ter- 
ritory of  New  Y^'ork  State ;  but  after  it  passes  the  Palisades,  on 
its  way  to  the  sea,  it  washes  the  shores  of  New  Jersey.  The 
grant  made  to  Gibbons  wa^  on  the  assumption  that  where  the 
river  flowed  between  the  States  the  sovereignty  of  New  York 
extended  clean  across  it  to  low-water  line  on  the  New  Jersey 
shore.  A  Jersey  man  named  Ogden,  inclined  to  dispute  New 
York's  right  of  eminent  domain  off  the  Jersey  coast,  set  up  a 
line  in  opposition  to  Gibbons,  and  started  to  run  boats  on  the 
New  Jersey  side  of  the  river  between  points  on  the  Jersey  shore. 
At  Gibbons'  instance,  the  New  York  State  courts  enjoined  him 
from  running  his  steamers,  on  the  ground  that  his  charter  was 
in  contravention  of  that  which  had  been  given  by  the  New 
York  Legislature.  The  position  taken  by  the  New  Y^ork  State 
authorities  in  defending  the  Gibbons  grant  was  sustained  by  all 
(66) 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  67 

of  the  New  York  courts,  and  Ogden  succeeded  in  gaining  the 
ascendancy  only  when  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  decided 
that  the  right  of  eminent  domain  in  the  river  was  shared  by  the 
States  alike — that  New  York  was  supreme  from  her  shore  west- 
ward to  the  middle  of  the  stream,  and  New  Jersey  supreme 
from  her  shore  eastward  to  the  middle  of  the  stream. 

Having  thus  secured  recognition  to  a  title  in  the  river,  Neve 
Jersey  naturally  became  interested  to  know  what  the  character 
of  that  title  was,  and  even  as  early  in  the  history  of  the  litiga- 
tion as  that  hints  were  thrown  out  that  she  had  a  title  in  the 
land  under  the  water  adverse  even  to  that  of  the  owners  of  the 
contiguous  upland. 

To  the  lay  mind  it  seems  difficult  to  dissociate  the  idea  of  the 
ownership  of  the  upland  from  the  idea  of  the  ownership  of  the 
eea  rights  beyond.  There  could  seem  to  be  but  little  question 
that  he  who  owns  land  right  down  to  the  water's  edge  is  also 
the  owner,  as  a  matter  of  course,  of  whatever  private  rights  can 
be  reserved  in  the  water  that  washes  it.  There  are  rights  of 
navigation  and  transit  and  fishing  in  running  streams  or  in 
bodies  of  water  where  the  tide  rises  and  falls,  that  must  always 
be  reserved  for  the  public.  That,  everybody  can  understand ; 
but  it  is  difficult  to  comprehend  what  system  of  logic  can  justify 
a  stranger  in  stepping  to  a  man's  water  front  and  claiming  and 
•exercising  adverse  rights  in  the  submerged  land  that  is  appur- 
tenant to  it. 

There  had,  however,  been  suggestions  as  early  as  1845  that 
perhaps  a  shore-owner's  rights  might  be  limited  to  the  land 
which  he  could  see,  and  that  the  sovereignty  over  submerged 
land  lay  with  the  State.  It  was  insisted  that  the  State's  title 
could  be  traced  back  to  the  King  of  England  without  a  break, 
and  that  the  State  succeeded  to  the  domain  which  the  kings  had 
not  specifically  granted  to  private  or  corporate  owners  prior  to 
the  Revolution.  But,  perfect  as  her  title  was  claimed  to  be, 
the  State  prudently  abstained  from  an  active  invasion  of  the 
lands  and  contented  herself  with  regulating  the  private  use  of 
the  streams  only  so  far  as  was  necessary  to  prevent  encroach- 
ments upon  the  public  rights. 


68  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 

The  Wharf  Act  that  was  for  many  years  in  force  was  far  from 
assuming  that  a  stranger  had  a  right  to  go  to  a  man's  shore  front 
and  extend  a  dock  or  pier  from  it  into  the  river  or  bay ;  it 
merely  laid  down  the  lines  within  which  the  ripa-owner  must 
himself  build.  Its  sole  purpose  was  to  protect  the  streams  against 
invasions  from  the  shore  that  might  interfere  with  their  flow  or 
their  proper  use  by  the  public  for  navigation  and  fishing  pur- 
poses. It,  indeed,  enabled  any  shore-owner  to  appropriate  the 
water  rights  beyond  his  water  line  by  extending  docks  and  piers. 
Hosts  of  the  shore-owners  availed  themselves  of  this  privilege. 
Early  in  the  seventies,  James  Hoey,  of  Trenton,  and  a  Rah  way 
associate  desired  to  go  beyond  the  designated  filling  line,  and 
they  applied  to  the  Legislature  for  permission  to  do  it.  They 
expected  this  grant  for  nothing;  but  Senator  Little,  of  Mon- 
mouth, and  some  of  his  colleagues,  insisted  that  if  the  State 
could  confer  a  privilege  of  that  kind  she  should  be  compensated 
for  whatever  rights  she  parted  with  to  the  applicants,  and  a  dis- 
cussion that  was  bigger  than  the  grant  supervened.  Hoey  and 
his  fellow- petitioners  were  backed  by  commanding  influences  in 
the  controversy,  but  Senator  Little  carried  his  point,  and  so  was 
passed  the  first  riparian  bill  that  ever  went  through  the  New" 
Jersey  Legislature. 

It  is  doubtful  if  the  State  would  ever  have  dared  to  have 
done  more  than  to  make  these  occasional  grants  beyond  the  solid- 
filling  line  if  the  scandalous  contentions  over  the  shore  rights 
on  the  Hudson  county  front  of  the  Hudson  river  had  not 
made  some  police  supervision  of  the  river  necessary.  Dudley  8. 
Gregory,  A.  O.  Zabriskie,  afterwards  Chancellor ;  Peter  Bentley, 
Commodore  Stevens,  John  M.  Cornelison  and  others  interested 
with  them,  were  purchasing  uplands  and  absorbing  the  water 
privileges  conferred  by  the  Wharf  act.  They  were  partly 
moved  by  the  speculative  spirit  and  partly  acting  in  the  inter- 
est of  the  railroad  corporations  that  were  reaching  out  for  every 
inch  of  submerged  land  that  could  be  turned  into  solid  ground  ; 
and,  even  after  the  State  had  interposed  her  claims  to  under- 
water lands  in  order  to  protect  them  from  these  invasions,  she 
found  it  necessary  to  invoke  the  love  of  the  people  for  the 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  69 

State's  school  system  a3  a  means  of  popularizing  what  many  re- 
garded as  an  usurpation  on  her  part,  and  to  play  a  skillful 
game  of  bluff  by  way  of  giving  fictitious  value  and  strength  to 
her  title.  The  story  of  the  methods  those  who  interested  them- 
selves in  her  behalf  employed  to  establish  her  title  to  these  great 
stretches  of  riparian  front  is  one  of  exceptional  interest. 

The  railroad  aggressions  were  due  to  the  greed  for  terminal 
facilities  close  to  the  Metropolis,  and  it  was,  consequently,  in  the 
controversy  between  her  and  the  railroads  over  the  Hudson 
county  shore  front  that  the  skillfully-developed  propaganda  of 
the  State  was  first  successfully  set  up.  The  Morris  canal  had, 
under  the  Wharf  Act,  built  out  into  the  bay  off  the  Jersey 
City  shore  front  and  inclosed  about  forty  acres  of  land.  Ships 
had  harbored  there,  and  Senator  Little  called  attention  to  this 
invasion  of  seamen's  rights  and  precipitated  the  inquiry  into  the 
State's  riparian  rights. 

The  Jersey  Central  was  the  first  to  attempt  these  systematic 
invasions,  and  the  first  to  create  the  situation  which  enabled  the 
statesmen  of  the  Commonwealth  to  get  in  their  big  licks  in  her 
behalf  for  the  ownership  of  the  disputed  territory.  This  com- 
pany had  begun  to  exhibit  the  unhappy  faculty  of  squatting 
upon  valuable  land  that  seemed  to  have  no  visible  owner  and 
appropriating  it  to  its  own  use;  and  it  had  prepared  in  this 
way  to  take  possession  of  the  Jersey  City  shore  front  which  lay 
on  South  or  Cummunipaw  Bay.  The  shore  at  that  point  was 
€scalloped  by  the  river,  and  a  mud  flat  with  an  overlay  of  shal- 
low water  extended  for  nearly  a  mile  into  the  stream.  The 
company  prepared  to  fill  in  these  flats  and  make  solid  ground  to 
a  point  from  which  its  piers  and  ferry  slips  could  be  easily  ex- 
tended to  the  channel.  It  proposed  to  do  this  in  defiance  of  the 
protests  of  the  owners  of  the  adjoining  uplands — who  claimed,  of 
course,  that  their  water  rights  extended  into  the  river ;  and,  to 
armor  itself  with  a  colorable  title  against  them,  it  conceived  the 
idea  of  persuading  the  State  to  make  a  grant  of  the  property. 

John  Taylor  Johnson  was  at  that  time  its  President,  and 
through  his  agency  a  party  of  New  York  capitalists  interested 
an  the  big  corporation  organized  themselves  into  the  American 


70  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

Dock  and  Improvement  Company.  Their  object  was  to  secure 
from  the  Legislature  a  free  grant  of  all  the  water  frontage  in 
Hudson  county,  extending  from  South  Cove  to  Cavan  Point. 

The  State  riparian  zealots  met  the  bill  with  the  claim  that 
the  Stale  herself  had  a  title  in  this  great  water  front  that  she 
could  not  be  expected  to  give  up  for  nothing ;  and  it  was  in 
the  hope  of  popularizing  this  claim  that  she  started  the  idea  of 
devoting  all  moneys  received  from  riparian  grants  to  a  great 
fund  to  be  forever  sacred  to  the  maintenance  of  her  free  school 
system. 

The  American  Dock  and  Improvement  Company  was  not  to 
be  balked  by  any  such  agitation  as  that,  and  persisted  in  it& 

efforts  with  the  Legislature  of 
1864  so  successfully,  that  it 
boasted  of  no  less  than  fourteen 
votes  in  the  Senate  for  i(s  bill. 

^        ^4*.        "^^^  ^^   ^^^   ^°    ^^^^   crisis,  and    the 

night  before  the  vote  was  to  be 
taken,  that  Augustus  W.  Cutler^ 
Francis  S.  Lathrop  and  John  L^ 
N.  Stratton,  who  were  among 
the  prime  movers  in  the  free 
school  fund  idea,  sprang  the 
proposition  that  seemed  to  give  a 
Augustus  w.  cutler.  ^.^^j  ^^^   tangible   value   to   the 

State's  claim.  They  made  a  pub- 
lic cffer  to  buy  for  $1,000,000  the  lands  which  the  American 
Dock  and  Improvement  Company  were  trying  to  take  without 
price.  Their  formal  offer  appeared  in  three  Trenton  papers — the 
"State  Gazette,"  "True  American"  and  " Emporium  "—the 
morning  the  vote  was  to  be  taken  in  the  Senate.  It  was  a  stunner 
for  the  fourteen  avowed  advocates  of  the  railroad  bill.  For^ 
where  was  the  man  who  would  dare  vote  to  a  party  of  foreigners 
for  nothing  a  title  for  which  native  Jerseymen  were  willing  to 
pay  a  round  million?  And  they  halted  for  the  consideration  of 
a  counter  bill  providing  that  the  Legislature  should  make  no- 
grants  of  wa<^er  front  property  until  a  commission  consisting  of 


Cortlandt  Parker. 


72  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTOX. 

J.  R.  Wortendyke,  John  Linn,  Joseph  T.  Crowell,  John  L.  N. 
Stratton  and  James  B.  Dayton  had  first  determined  the  rights 
of  the  State  in  regard  to  the  lands  under  water  out  to  low  tide. 

The  opinions  of  lawyers  were  sought  upon  the  question.  The 
agitators  of  the  State's  rights  were  not  satisfied  that  Attorney- 
General  Frederick  T.  Frelinghuysen,  who  was  himself  counsel 
for  the  Dock  and  Improvement  Company,  would  favor  their 
contention,  and  on  their  behalf  Mr.  Cutler  even  solicited  Gov- 
ernor Parker  to  name  a  special  lawyer  to  investigate  the  sub- 
ject from  their  standpoint.  Governor  Parker  was  naturally 
delicate  about  acceding  to  this  request.  He  regarded  Mr.  Fre- 
linghuysen's  high  character  as  a  sufficient  guarantee  against  a 
biased  opinion;  and  Mr.  Cutler  and  his  associates  themselves 
sought  the  written  opinions  of  outside  lawyers.  One  of  these 
from  ex- Attorney- General  Browning,  of  Camden,  and  another 
from  Cortlandt  Parker,  of  Newark,  sustained  the  State's  title. 
The  opinions  of  Attorney- General  Frelinghuysen  and  Coun- 
selor Abraham  O.  Zabriskie,  afterwards  Chancellor,  who  became 
rich  through  his  traffic  in  these  same  disputed  lands,  declared, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  the  claim  of  the  State  was  a  practical 
invasion  of  private  rights. 

The  Jersey  Central  was  forced  by  these  means  to  pay  be- 
comingly for  the  water  rights  it  desired,  aad  the  bill  authorizing 
the  State  Riparian  Commission  to  ascertain  and  declare  the 
rights  of  the  State  passed. 

Robert  C.  Bacot,  well  known  as  an  engineer  in  Jersey  City, 
was  instructed  by  the  Commission  to  direct  and  superintend  the 
surveys  in  the  easterly  part  of  the  State ;  E.  H.  Sanders,  of 
Camden,  to  superintend  those  on  the  Delaware  front.  The  im- 
portant branch  of  the  work  was  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Bacot,  who 
was  afterwards  made  the  Engineer  of  the  Commission  and  at  the 
time  of  this  writing  still  held  the  position.  After  careful  in- 
quiry, the  Commissioners  decided  that  the  title  to  the  lands 
under  tide-waters  rested  with  the  State,  and  that  the  property 
of  the  upland-owner  did  not  extend  beyond  low- water  line.  It 
was  cautious  in  asserting  its  prerogative,  however,  and  gave  the 
owners  of  lands  situated  along  or  upon  tide- water,  the  privilege 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


73 


of  building  docks  or  wharves  on  the  shore  in  front  of  their 
Sands  to  low  water  mark,  and  when  so  built  to  appropriate 
them  to  their  own  uses.  But  the  Commissioners  quietly  inti- 
mated they  were  "not  prepared  to  take  the  lead  in  advising  that 
the  shore -owner  has  now  by  law  an  absolutely  vested  right  to 
this  preference." 

A  memorable  contention  between  the  Matthiessen  Sugar 
House  people  and  the  Morris  Canal  Company,  gave  the  State  a 
better  opportunity  to  as- 
sert her  title  in  an  effective 
way,  and  she  was  not  slow 
to  seize  it.  The  Sugar 
House  had  located  at  the 
foot  of  Washington  street, 
in  Jersey  City  for  the 
water  privileges  that  were 
accessible  in  the  South 
Cove.  When  the  Jersey 
Central  began  to  fill  in, 
in  the  Cove,  the  sugar 
refiners  feared  the  de- 
struction of  their  harbor. 
They  appealed  to  the 
State  for  a  grant  of  the 
water  rights.  The  Mor- 
ris Canal  was  already  in 
possession   of    the  same 

water  rights,  and  in  self- protection  it  opposed  the  Matthiessens' 
application  with  a  demand  that  the  State's  title  should  be  con- 
ferred on  the  canal  company.  A  lively  hustle  for  the  pre- 
cedence supervened.  The  Morris  Canal  officials  pulled  the 
longer  stroke  with  the  State  authorities,  and  the  grant  was  given 
to  them,  but  not  till  the  sugar  refiners  had  secured  the  insertion 
of  a  proviso  that  the  waterway  should  be  forever  kept  open,  at 
the  canal  company's  expense,  for  the  traffic  of  their  craft. 

When  Jersey  City  subsequently  made  an  attempt  to  extend 
Washington  street  across  the  water  gap  thus  ordered  to  be  kept 


Robert  Gilchrist 


74  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

open,  the  Matthiessen  folks  attempted  to  interpose.  The  court 
declared  that  as  they  had  no  title  there  they  had  no  standing  as 
litigants.  Equal  to  all  emergencies,  Robert  Gilchrist,  who  was 
their  counsel,  induced  Thomas  N.  McCarter,  the  Morris  Canal 
Company's  counsel,  to  interpose  on  behalf  of  the  canal  com- 
pany. The  courts  held  that  the  city  could  not  cross  the  Morris 
canal  grant  without  damages.  The  award  of  a  single  dollar 
would  have  served  to  secure  the  right  of  way  for  the  proposed 
street.  It  had  not  been  made,  and  the  city  was  defeated  in  her 
suit.  The  State's  title  in  under- water  lands  was  thus  re- affirmed 
by  the  refusal  of  the  courts  to  permit  trespass  upon  the  property 
of  one  of  its  riparian  grantees.* 

A  contention  a  few  years  later  between  the  shore-owners,  or 
some  of  them,  and  the  New  Jersey  Railroad  and  Transpor- 
tation Company  over  the  Jauds  lying  in  Harsimus  Cove,  north- 
of  its  passenger  depots,  opened  another  opportunity  for  a  bold 
stroke  to  establish  the  State's  right  of  occupancy.  The  company 
designed  filling  in  the  Cove  as  John  Taylor  Johnson  had  filled 
in  the  South  Cove,  and  to  make  the  "  made  ground  "  the  site  of 
a  capacious  freight  yard.  John  Van  Vorst  and  some  of  the 
other  upland-owners  were  so  tenacious  of  their  sea  rights,  how- 
ever, that  the  company's  scheme  seemed  impossible  of  fruition, 
and  a  resort  was  had  to  the  Legislature  for  adverse  title.  Like 
the  Jersey  Central  the  company  expected  to  get  the  title  for 
a  song. 

But  here  again  Judge  Lathrop,  Senator  Cobb  and  ex-Senator 
Cutler  sprang  to  the  Slate's  aid.  James  Gopsill,  a  portly  and 
cultured  gentlemen  who  in  Brooklyn  might  have  easily  passed 

*  The  extension  of  Washington  street  was  prompted  by  the  Jersey  Cen- 
tral's desire  to  make  a  more  direct  connection  between  its  depot  and  railroad 
yards  and  the  main  portion  of  Jersey  City.  The  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company,  the  Jersey  Central's  business  rival,  made  common  cause  with  the 
Sugar  House  people  against  the  extension.  The  bridging  of  the  Gap  was  for 
years  the  occasion  of  the  bitterest  contention  between  the  two  railroads  in  the 
Legislature.  Unable,  because  the  property-owners  whose  consents  were 
needed  as  a  preliminary  to  the  extension  were  of  adverse  interest,  to  secure  the- 
consent  of  owners  of  half  tlie  abutting  property,  the  Jersey  Central  finally 
gave  up  the  struggle  as  a  hopeless  one. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  75 

for  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  was  Mayor  of  Jersey  City  at  the 
time.  He  had  also  interested  himself  in  a  scheme  projected  by 
Orestfs  Cleveland  and  some  others  to  lay  out  a  boulevard 
through  Hudson  county,  at  an  expense  of  $1,000,000.  Mr. 
Cutler  dropped  down  to  see  him  one  night  while  the  Harsimus- 
Cove  grant  was  pending. 

"  Here,  Mayor,"  he  said  to  the  courtly  Gopsill,  "  you  repre- 
sent a  city  whose  great  water  front  has  been  absorbed  by  the 
railroad  corporations.  It  has  not  a  dock  of  its  own.  See  what 
great  wealth  could  be  brought  to  it  by  the  improvement,  for  its- 
benefit,  of  the  Harsimus  front  in  the  way  the  United  Railroads 
are  asking  to  improve  it.  It's  a  greater  public  benefit  many 
times  over  than  the  boulevard  in  which  you  have  interested 
yourself.  Suppose,  now,  that  you  were  to  spend  for  the  State's 
rights  there  the  million  dollars  you  hope  to  have  the  county 
spend  upon  the  drive." 

Mr.  Gopsill  was  not  taken  with  the  idea  at  the  start ;  but  it 
grew  into  magnificent  proportions  as  Mr.  Cutler  elaborated  it^ 
and  finally  the  Mayor  agreed  to  bestir  himself  to  have  Jersey 
City  bid  a  million  of  dollars  for  the  water  grant  the  railroad 
company  sought  for  a  trifle.  The  next  morning  he  called  the 
Aldermen  into  hurried  session,  and  before  the  Legislature  had 
re-assembled  Monday  night,  the  city's  counterbid  was  known  all 
over  the  State.  The  result  was  that  the  railroad  company  went 
up  in  its  price,  and  with  the  consent  of  all  sides  the  determina- 
tion of  the  amount  it  should  pay  for  the  franchise  it  sought  was- 
submitted  to  the  arbitrament  of  a  commission. 

The  State  succeeded,  in  the  end,  in  forcing  the  railroad  to  pay 
$500,000  for  this  water  front ;  and  the  enemies  of  the  railroad 
company  think  they  saw  the  signs  that  the  company  took  imme- 
diate steps  to  get  the  money  back  again. 

"  I  was  President  of  the  Senate  at  that  time,"  said  Henry  S. 
Little,  in  recounting  the  story  of  the  subsequent  movements^ 
"  and  one  day  while  I  was  in  the  chair  a  great  stream  of  men, 
the  railroad  lobby  among  them,  came  rushing  into  the  Senate.^ 
The  Clerk  of  the  House  with  a  message  for  the  Senate  was  at 
the  head  of  the  throng.     I  smelled  a  mouse  at  once,  and  when 


76  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

^Joe'  Cornish,  the  Senate  Secretary,  handed  up  the  message 
and  asked  me  to  rush  it  through,  I  made  up  my  mind  it  would 
be  a  good  thing  to  see  what  was  in  it  first.  Looking  over  the 
list  of  the  bills  it  enumerated  in  which  the  Senate's  concurrence 
was  asked,  I  saw  one  that  purported  on  its  face  to  make  an  in- 
crease in  the  amount  of  the  transit  duties  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  Company  was  paying  to  the  State  in  lieu  of  taxes,  and 
I  made  up  my  mind  that  that  was  the  Ethiopian  that  I  wanted 
to  put  my  hand  on.  I  slid  the  bill  from  the  batch  into  my 
desk,  and  discovered,  on  reading  it  afterwards,  that  while  it 
purported  to  increase  the  transit  duties  it  really  decreased  them. 
It  fixed  a  larger  rate  on  merchandise  that  was  least  transported, 
but  a  lower  rate  on  the  bulk  of  its  traffic.  It  took  the  State 
Treasurer,  William  P.  McMichael,  three  or  four  days  to  cipher 
it  out  for  me  from  the  books.  I  found  out  that  Governor  Ran- 
dolph was  committed  to  the  passage  of  that  bill,  and  that  Sena- 
tor Cobb,  of  Morris,  was  disposed  to  favor  it.  There  were 
conferences  between  John  Stevens,  General  Robert  Stockton 
and  myself,  at  which  they  tried  to  persuade  me  to  consent  to 
the  passage  of  that  act,  but  I  argued  so  firmly  against  it  that 
Cobb  finally  came  to  my  side ;  and  the  result  was  an  agreement 
that  the  act  should  be  amended  so  as  to  provide  that  the  transit 
duties  of  the  future  should  never  be  lower  in  amount  than  those 
which  the  company  had  paid  the  year  before.  That  amount 
was  $298,000,  and  that  was  the  sum  which  the  company  paid 
into  the  State  treasury  annually  afterwards  till  the  Abbett  tax 
law  went  into  operation  in  1884." 

Two  handsome  bids  had  now  been  made  for  the  State's  under- 
water title ;  and  naturally  the  belief  that  there  must  be  ground 
for  the  claim  that  had  forced  them,  grew  apace;  and  before 
Theodore  F.  Randolph  vacated  the  Governorship — to  which 
he  had  succeeded  in  1869 — there  was  something  of  a  sentiment 
in  favor  of  the  bold  assertion  by  the  State  of  her  absolute  title 
in  the  lands.  Mr.  Randolph,  when  he  represented  Hudson 
in  the  Senate,  during  the  earlier  stages  of  the  controversy, 
had  stood  in  opposition  to  the  encroachments  upon  private 
rights  the  riparian  movement  stood  for.     But,  besides  losing 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  77 

his  local  interest  in  Hudson  affairs  through  his  removal  ta 
Morris  county,  he  had  now  as  Governor  some  ambitious 
schemes  that  might  be  aided  by  the  establishment  of  the  State's 
title,  and  he  made  a  noticeable  change  of  front  on  the  question. 

The  attack,  as  far  as  it  had  now  gone,  was  entirely  upon  the 
water  front  on  the  Hudson  river  and  New  York  bay,  and  it 
was  not  long  before  the  rest  of  the  State  began  to  see  how  rich 
the  Commonwealth  could  become  at  the  expense  of  her  river 
counties.  At  that  time  the  expenses  of  the  State  government 
were  paid  by  a  tax  imposed  upon  all  the  counties.  Governor 
Randolph  made  the  plea  that  the  State  was  in  need  of  funds ; 
and  twenty  of  its  counties  were  selfishly  willing  to  get  the 
needed  money  at  the  expense  of  the  twenty- first.  Judge  Lath- 
rop  drew  a  bill  extending  the  prerogatives  of  the  State  Riparian 
Commission  and  investing  it  with  full  authority  to  do  whatever 
it  pleased  in  the  way  of  the  sale  or  lease  of  the  under-water 
lands,  and  Governor  Randolph  bent  all  the  energies  of  his  ad- 
ministration toward  securing  its  passage. 

Hudson  was  stirred  by  the  movement  as  she  never  had  been 
stirred  before.  But  the  only  concession  the  promoters  of  the 
bill  would  make  to  her  was  in  the  shape  of  a  proviso  that  the 
owner  of  the  shore  front  should  be  privileged  for  six  months  ta 
purchase  the  adjacent  water  rights  before  they  could  be  sold  to 
a  stranger.  This  was  wrung  from  them  by  Mr.  Abbett,  wha 
was  then  representing  one  of  the  Hudson  districts  in  the  Assem- 
bly. In  the  first  commission  appointed  under  this  act,  Mr. 
Lathrop,  its  Chairman,  and  Mr.  Cutler,  its  Secretary,  were  the 
active  spirits.  Its  first  report  boasted  of  the  State's  windfall,  in 
noting  that  the  distance  from  Enyard's  dock,  near  Bergen  Point, 
northward  through  the  Kill- von- Kull,  and  thence  along  the  line 
of  New  York  bay  and  the  Hudson  river  to  the  boundary  of 
the  State  of  New  York,  was  thirty- two  miles.  Of  this,  four 
miles  had  been  granted  at  the  time  the  report  was  made  for 
$1,250,000,  and  the  Commission  estimated  that  from  the  part 
not  yet  disposed  of  an  additional  three  or  four  millions  of  dollars 
might  be  realized. 

The  State  now  lost  no  time  in  fortifying  itself  by  an  appeal  to 


78  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

the  courts.  The  Paterson  and  Newark  Railroad  Company,  under 
cover  of  a  grant  from  the  Riparian  Board,  extended  its  line 
upon  a  strip  of  territory  between  high  and  low-water  mark  in 
front  of  the  shore  owned  by  Frederick  A.  Stevens,  in  Jersey 
■City,  and  Chief  Justice  Beasley,  in  December,  1870,  ruled  that 
the  State's  deed  gave  it  the  right  to  go  there.  This  decision  not 
only  laid  down  the  rights  of  the  State  to  the  guarantees  to  the 
water  front,  but  has  been  accepted  as  an  exposition  of  the  law 
governing  riparian  properties  by  the  judiciary  of  many  other 
States;  and  the  State  Riparian  Board,  in  the  hope  of  battering 
down  the  public  prejudice  against  its  assumptions,  never  made 
a  report  for  five  years  that  failed  to  recite  it. 

The  idea  of  Governor  Randolph  and  Judge  Lathrop  and 
their  associates  in  promoting  the  passage  of  the  bill,  was  to  pro- 
vide money  for  public  purposes.  The  current  expense  account 
was  to  be  recouped  by  it,  and  they  had  their  eye  also  upon  the 
erection  of  the  big  asylum  at  Morris  Plains,  But  the  establish- 
ment of  the  riparian  titles  put  an  implied  contract  upon  the 
State  to  devote  the  proceeds  to  the  maintenance  of  the  schools.  It 
was  in  the  interest  of  a  school  fund,  indeed,  that  the  successful  cam- 
paign had  been  made.  Educational  zealots  agreed  that  the  large 
increase  of  income  which  the  State  was  to  realize  from  the  sale 
and  lease  of  her  riparian  properties  would  only  incite  to  public 
jobbery  and  extravagance  unless  some  useful  channel  were  pro- 
vided for  it ;  and  they  insisted  that  that  was  an  additional  rea- 
son why  the  State  should  keep  her  engagement  with  the  people. 
A  clause  in  the  Constitution,  which  provided  that  the  fund  for 
the  support  of  free  schools  and  all  accretions  to  it  should  be 
sacredly  hoarded,  seemed  to  contemplate  the  establishment  of  a 
fund  that  would  make  the  schools  free  without  a  tax  on  the 
people.  And  these  devotees,  ambitious  to  make  the  free  school 
system  of  the  State  its  proudest  institution  and  to  establish  it 
on  a  basis  of  financial  independence  that  would  remove  it  from 
the  remotest  peril,  insisted  that  the  riparian  moneys  should  be 
devoted  to  the  accumulation  of  such  a  fund. 

Assemblyman  Nathaniel  Niles,  of  Morris,  became  their 
spokesman,  and  he  introduced  an  act  perpetually  appropriating 


MODERN  BA.TrLE3  OF  TRENTON. 


79 


■^!*I4  "f^ 


the  moneys  to  the  support  of  the  public  schools.     Their  calcu- 
lation was  that  eventually  the  fund  would  reach  such  an  amount 
that  the  income  from  its  investment  would  pay  all  the  expenses 
attending  the  maintenance  of  the  schools  and  make  possible  the 
education  of  the  youth  of  the  State  without  expense  to  their 
parents.     The  people  would  probably  allow  a  very  excellent  in- 
stitution that  would  cost  them  nothing  to  stand  without  dis- 
turbance; and  the  theory  upon  which  the  advocates  of  the  bill 
went  was  that,  if  the 
schools    were    main- 
tained without  taxa- 
tion, the  free  system 
would  exist   forever. 
The    purpose    for 
which  the  communi- 
ties  in  some  of  the 
rural    parts    of    the 
State  most  dislike  to 
go  down   into    their 
pockets,  is  this  very 
noble  one  of  educat- 
ing    their    children. 
There  has  been  more 
frictijn  between  the 
counties  over  the  ad  • 
justmentof  the  school 
tax    than   over    any 
other  public  function. 

Schools  in  the  poorer  and  smaller  counties  are,  even  to  this  day, 
maintained  largely  at  the  expense  of  the  richer  and  more  popu- 
lous counties.  The  tax  is  collected  by  the  State  from  each 
county  on  the  basis  of  its  wealth,  and  redistributed  to  each 
county  on  the  basis  of  its  children  ;  and  so  it  is  that  Essex  and 
Hudson,  which  have  more  dollars  than  babies,  contribute  to  the 
educational  demands  of  Cape  May  and  Ocean,  which  have  more 
babies  than  dollars.  The  less  rich  and  populous  counties  are 
eternally  beating  their  brains  for  devices  to  evade  as  much  as 


Nathaniel  Niles. 


80  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

possible  their  school  taxes,  and  impose  the  maintenance  of  their 
schools  upon  the  more  wealthy  counties. 

Mr.  Niks  shrewdly  utilized  this  aversion  of  the  rural  tax- 
payer when  he  came  to  canvas?  for  votes  for  his  bill.  He 
showed  the  rural  Assemblyman  how  every  dollar  paid  into  the 
fund  would  measurably  lighten  the  school  tax  bill  of  his  con- 
stituents and  easily  persuaded  the  Assemblyman  that  the  inter- 
ests of  his  people  required  that  he  should  vote  for  it.  Governor 
Randolph  and  Judge  Lathrop,  as  might  have  been  expected, 
opposed  it ;  and  the  Governor  even  endeavored  to  persuade  him 
to  withdraw  it.     But  he  refused  to  yield  and  forced  it  to  a  vote. 

The  opposition  of  such  shining  lights  as  the  Governor  and 
the  Judge  solidified  the  Democratic  vote  against  it,  but  both 
Houses  were  Republican,  and  it  was  sent  to  the  Governor  for 
approval.  It  encountered  his  veto,  but  after  it  had  been 
thoroughly  discussed  the  Democrats  concluded  that  they  might 
as  well  turn  in  and  help  it  through,  and  with  the  Republicans 
they  voted  for  it.     And  so  the  bill  became  a  law. 

The  appropriation  of  these  moneys  to  the  support  of  the  public 
schools  was  the  step  that  gave  the  system  of  free  education  the 
cover  of  State  protection.  There  had  been  a  State  Board  of 
Education,  and  Professor  Ellis  A.  Apgar  bad  been  State  School 
Superintendent  since  1866.  He  found  the  schools  under  the 
supervision  of  230  Township  Superintendents;  they  were  mainly 
dependent  for  their  support  upon  township  tax,  and  were  not 
even  required  to  be  free.  It  was  upon  his  recommendation 
that  an  act  was  passed  in  1871  forbidding  charges  for  tuition  in 
the  public  schools^  and  it  was  he  who  perfected  the  system  by 
which  a  State  tax  was  imposed  everywhere  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  schools — being  first  collected  by  the  State  and  redis- 
tributed among  the  communities  according  to  their  needs. 

When  Professor  Addison  B.  Poland  was  promoted  from  the 
City  School  Superintendency  of  Jersey  City  to  the  State  School 
Superintendency,  he  saw  that  the  established  system  was  still  sus- 
ceptible of  improvement,  and  created  a  widespread  commotion — 
of  short  duration  happily — while  he  made  it.  He  found  the  State 
divided  into  innumerable  school  districts — a  district  wherever 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


81 


there  was  a  school-house — and  a  noticeable  inequality  [in  the 
matter  of  attendance  and  eflBciency.  The  State  paid  a  bonus  to 
the  counties  for  each  of  the  school  districts,  and  some  of  the 
more  greedy  counties  had,  in  order  to  capture  it,  established 
more  school  districts  than  their  school  population  demanded. 
There  were  indeed 
some  school  dis- 
tricts to  which  the 
allowance  was  made 
that  had  an  inap- 
preciably small 
population;  and 
one  of  the  enume- 
rators, instructed  to 
make  a  canvass  of 
h  i  s  district  for 
school  chil  dren, 
amused  the  State 
in  1893  by  report- 
ing that  the  school 
population  in  that 
district  had  been 
confined  to  the  chil- 
dren of  a  single 
family,  that  the 
school- room  had 
been  in  one  of  the 
family   apartments, 

and  that  the  family  had  finally  wiped  the  district  off  the  school 
map  by  moving  away. 

Mr.  Poland  had  been  tutored  in  school  methods  in  Massa- 
chusetts, and  the  system  which  prevailed  there  had  struck  him 
as  being  one  that,  with  proper  modifications,  could  be  adapted 
to  the  re-organization  of  the  school  districts  in  the  State.  The 
operation  of  the  system  was  to  consolidate  the  school  districts 
and  reduce  their  number.  The  new  grouping  was  made  on  such 
lines  that  schools  that  had  been  poorly  attended  and  meagerly 

6 


Addison  B.  Poland. 


82  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

supported  were  provided  with  a  larger  circle  from  which  to 
recruit  their  classes  and  with  more  adequate  means  for  the 
employment  of  proper  instructors  and  the  maintenance  of  higher 
school  standards. 

The  effect  of  the  act  when  it  had  been  passed  by  the  Legis- 
lature of  1894,  was  to  turn  out  of  their  places  about  three  thou- 
sand five  hundred  school  district  trustees,  who  had  held  their 
positions  so  long  that  they  had  come  to  look  upon  them 
as  their  personal  property,  and,  of  course,  the  air  became  vocal 
with  their  protests  against  the  innovation.  There,  were  loud 
demands  for  the  repeal,  or,  at  any  rate,  the  essential  modifica- 
tion of  the  law ;  but  by  the  time  a  new  Legislature  was  ready  to 
go  to  the  reconsideration  of  the  matter,  the  new  plan  had  so 
commended  itself  to  the  judgment  of  the  real  friends  of  the 
schools  throughout  the  State  that  it  was  allowed  to  stand  practi- 
cally untouched.  The  beneficial  results  become  more  and  more 
manifest  every  day,  and  the  only  direction  in  which  the  new 
system  is  likely  to  be  touched  is  in  that  of  embellishment  and 
improvement. 

Each  succeeding  administration  attempted  to  wipe  off  the 
«tatute-books  the  act  donating  the  riparian  funds  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  free  educational  system.  They  urged  that  the 
money  was  needed  for  public  purposes,  and  that  the  State  could 
not  afford  to  tie  up  so  vast  a  sum  for  a  mere  theoretical  end. 
Governor  Parker,  who  succeeded  Randolph,  led  the  first  at- 
tack, and  each  Governor  after  that  time  renewed  it,  but  always 
without  success,  till  Abbett  went  to  the  Governorship  for  his 
second  term. 

Governor  Abbett  insidiously  prepared  the  public  mind  for 
the  final  coup.  His  first  feint  against  it  was  made  in  the  shape 
of  a  recommendation  in  his  annual  message  of  1885,  that  "the 
expenses  of  the  Riparian  Commission  ought  to  be  paid  out  of  the 
receipts  before  the  money  is  placed  in  the  school  fund,  because 
these  expenses  are  necessary  to  secure  and  protect  this  riparian 
income."  By  the  time  the  Legislature  of  1887  met,  he  was 
more  urgent  on  this  point,  and  advised  the  passage  of  an  act  of 
that  purport.      When  he  came  to  the  Governorship  for   the 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  83 

second  time,  in  1890,  he  had  in  mind  the  establishment  of  an 
autocracy  which  could  not  be  supported  out  of  the  limited  income 
the  State  then  had,  and  for  the  purpose  of  making  up  the  defi- 
ciency, he  came  out  flat-footed  with  a  demand  for  the  diversion 
of  the  fund  "  for  the  payment  of  the  indebtedness  of  the  State 
and  to  meet  absolutely  necessary  appropriations." 

"  We  owe  over  half  a  million  dollars,"  he  said  in  elaboration 
of  his  plea.  "  We  have  property  which  we  are  selling,  the  pro- 
ceeds of  which  would  gradually  enable  us  to  liquidate  this  in- 
debtedness. Is  it  not  financial  wisdom,  and  for  the  best 
interests  of  the  State,  to  use  the  revenue  from  this  source  to  meet 
the  obligations  of  the  State? 
This  proposition  does  not  touch 

the  school  fund  as  it  now  exists ;  ,  W  \ 

that  is  protected  by  the  pro- 
visions of  the  Constitution.  All  ,,  ^-^  '■'"' 
that  legislation  on  this  subject 
could  do  would  be  to  devote 
money  which  arises  from  this 
source  by  future  sales  and  leases 
to  the  payment  of  State  obliga- 
tions. I  recommend  to  the 
Legislature  to  pledge  the 
money  to  be  derived  from  the 

lands  in  the   future  to^  State  ^^^J""^  ^-  ^-  ^-^derson. 

purposes." 

The  suggestion  that  these  moneys  might  be  made  available 
for  general  State  purposes  had  originated  with  Major  Edward 
J.  Anderson,  who  had  been  promoted  from  the  Deputy  Comp- 
trollership  to  be  Comptroller  himself,  and  was  a  recognized 
power  in  Republican  councils.  He  urged  that  it  was  chimerical 
to  look  forward  to  the  time  when  the  accumulations  of  the  fund 
from  riparian  sales  would  produce  a  capital  that,  invested,  would 
yield  enough  money  to  free  the  State  from  the  school  tax ;  that 
up  to  that  time  the  fund  had  grown  only  to  $3,500,000,  and 
that  the  income  from  it  yielded  but  an  inappreciable  proportion 
of  the  moneys  spent  on  the  schools ;  that  because  of  the  growth 


84  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


of  population,  and  of  the  ever-increasing  demand  for  new  school 
facilities,  it  could  never  do  more  for  the  school  system  than  it 
was  doing  at  that  time,  and  that  it  was,  therefore,  Utopian  to 
nurse  the  fund  any  longer  with  the  idea  that  it  could  be  made 
to  pay  the  expense  of  maintaining  a  universal  free  school 
system. 

In  the  second  place,  he  was  against  the  policy  of  maintain- 
ing a  large  fund  in  idleness.  Unwise  investments  or  corrupt 
investments  might  waste  it.  And  in  the  third  place,  the 
State  was  borrowing  money,  had  lodged  its  own  note  with 
the  managers  of  the  fund  for  advances,  and  was,  therefore, 
practically  paying  interest  on  its  own  money.  Governor 
Abbett  welcomed  these  pretexts  that  placed  a  new  fund  at  the 
service  of  his  glittering  retinue  of  State  functionaries.  He  had 
but  to  hold  up  his  hand  to  the  men  who  were  serving  in  the 
Senate  and  the  House  at  the  time;  and  the  act  appropriating  the 
riparian  receipts  to  the  current  expense  account  went  through 
both  Houses  in  a  twinkling,  and  received  his  signature  the 
moment  it  reached  him. 

The  diversion  was,  however,  of  short  duration.  The  school 
fund  had  come  to  be  looked  upon  by  the  people  as  a  sacred 
trust,  and  the  signs  of  popular  displeasure  were  everywhere 
manifest;  and  when  the  State  conventions  of  the  two  parties 
met  in  Trenton  in  the  following  fall  to  select  candidates  for 
Governor,  both  were  forced  to  unanimously  adopt  resolutions 
declaring  for  the  integrity  of  the  State's  school  fund,  and 
pledging  the  party  to  a  repeal  of  Governor  Abbett's  law.  The 
repealer  went  through  at  the  next  session  of  the  Legislature 
without  any  opposition. 

The  diversion  of  this  income  from  the  use  of  the  schools  was 
not  the  only  ambitious  project  in  connection  with  the  riparian 
lands  to  which  Governor  Abbett  devoted  himself.  Toward  the 
close  of  his  second  administration  he  attempted  to  secure  legisla- 
tion looking  to  the  filling  in  of  the  reefs  extending  from  Ellis 
Island  to  Robbins'  Reef  Lighthouse,  off  the  Jersey  shore,  and  the 
erection  of  a  line  of  piers  and  warehouses  upon  the  artificial 
island  thus  erected  and  a  sale  of  the  whole  plant  to  those  who 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF  TRENTON.  85 

might  make  use  of  it.  The  Governor  claimed  that  this  im- 
provement would  be  worth  $5,000,000  to  the  State  treasury. 
The  Legislature  passed  the  act  which  he  drew,  but  the  United 
States  Government  defeated  its  execution,  after  the  interchange 
of  diplomatic  communications  between  Washington  and  Tren- 
ton, by  a  ruling  that  the  State's  exterior  filling  line  did  not  ex- 
tend as  far  out  from  the  shore  as  the  Governor's  enterprise  con- 
templated. There  was  always  an  idea  that  a  railroad  syndicate 
stood  ready  to  buy  the  State's  title  to  the  reefs,  and  Governor 
Abbett  is  himself  the  authority  for  the  statement  that  he  could 
have  sold  the  island  for  a  vast  sum  of  money  before  the  close  of 
his  executive  term  if  the  project  could  have  been  carried  to 
fruition. 

The  establishment  of  State  school  libraries,  under  an  act  of 
Mr.  Niles,  was  one  of  the  incidents  of  the  discussion  over  the 
school  fund.  Mr.  Niles  had  become  satisfied,  from  the  tone  of 
their  talk,  that  his  fellow- members  in  the  House  and  Senate 
would  resist  any  attempt  to  support  libraries  for  the  schools  with 
tax  money,  and  he  drew  an  act  for  their  maintenance  with  gift 
money.  It  provided  whenever  $20  should  be  raised  by  gift  in 
any  school  district,  the  State  should  make  other  gifts  to  match 
other  contributions  described  in  the  bill.  At  the  time  of  the 
passage  of  this  act  there  was  not  a  free  public  library  in  the 
State.  Now,  as  the  result  of  it,  even  every  little  famished 
school  district  in  the  State  has  its  own  library.  Mr.  Niles'  esti- 
mate is  that  $250,000  has  been  invested  in  these  little  collections 
of  books,  and  private  contributions  have  been  so  encouraged  by 
the  promise  of  the  State's  assistance,  that  of  this  quarter  million 
total  less  than  $50,000  has  come  from  public  funds.  Mr.  Niles 
always  maintained  a  lively  interest  in  these  libraries,  and  with 
his  own  hands  had  prepared  the  catalogues  from  which  they 
have  been  made. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

Which  shows  how  the  Pictxjresque  Pursuit  of  the  Rascally  City 
Treasurer   of  Jersey  City  into  Mexico  Contributed  to 
the  Movement  for  a  Constitutional  Conven- 
tion AND  A  System  of  General  Laws. 


'  AVING,  as  they  believed,  perpetuated  their  ascendency 
in  the  Assembly  through  the  agency  of  the  gerry- 
mander, the  Republicans  now  sought  to  acquire  con- 
trol of  the  government  of  the  cities.  This  was  not  a 
difficult  thing  to  accomplish  in  some  of  the  cities,  where  alder- 
manic  gerrymanders  were  employed  to  produce  majorities  in  the 
elective  governing  boards ;  but  there  were  others  where  the 
Democratic  majority  was  so  pronounced  that  even  this  choice 
scheme  of  disfranchisement  gave  n©  hope  of  overcoming  it. 
Jersey  City  was  one  of  them.  A  party  of  speculating  Republi- 
can contractors  had  set  their  eyes  upon  her  treasury,  and  were 
now  besieging  the  Legislature  of  1871  for  a  charter  that  would 
be  favorable  to  them.  They  found  a  pretext  for  a  change  in 
the  disfavor  into  which  the  existing  Democratic  regime  had 
fallen,  and  set  on  foot,  through  the  agency  of  pliant  newspaper 
organs,  a  public  agitation  for  it.  At  that  time  all  the  functions 
of  local  government — the  management  of  the  police  and  fire 
departments,  the  care  of  the  thoroughfares,  the  making  of  public 
improvements,  the  collection  and  disbursement  of  the  municipal 
moneys,  in  fact,  everything  relating  to  the  public  interest — were 
administered  by  the  Mayor  and  an  elected  Board  of  Aldermen. 
It  was  impossible  to  gerrymander  this  board  into  the  hands  of 
the  Republicans,  and  an  entire  overhauling  of  the  municipal 
system  was  decided  upon.  But  they  were  puzzled  to  know  how, 
after  they  had  got  rid  of  the  obstructive  board,  they  could  juggle 
the  public  offices  into  their  own  hands. 
(86) 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  87 

Jonathan  Dixon  was  at  that  time  of  the  law  firm  of  Dixon  <fe 
Collins.  He  was  recognized  as  one  of  the  most  skillful  lawyers 
in  the  northern  section  of  the  State.  Like  the  advocates  of  a 
change,  he  was  a  Republican,  and  they  retained  him  to  draw  a 
bill  that  would  aid  them  to  their  ends.  In  due  course  he 
evolved  from  his  subtle  brain  the  draft  of  an  act  that  took  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  people  absolutely  the  selection  of  their  public 
servants,  and  consequently  the  control  of  their  local  affairs,  and 
established,  in  the  place  of  the  popular  representative  boards  that 
had  been  managing  the  municipality,  a  series  of  department 
commissions  whose  members  were  to  be  chosen  by  the  Republi- 
can joint  meetings  of  the  Legislature.  Those  at  whose  instance 
the  act  was  prepared  were,  of  course,  potential  with  the  Assem- 
blymen and  Senator  representing  the  city  at  Trenton ;  and  the 
advice  of  these  representatives,  known  as  the  local  caucus,  would, 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  legislation,  be  law  to  the  general  caucus 
as  to  all  matters  pertaining  to  their  locality.  To  explain  :  The 
general  caucus  is  made  up  of  all  the  Senators  and  Assemblymen 
of  one  party.  The  Senator  from  Cape  May  is  not  supposed  to  know 
anything  of  Jersey  City's  requirements  as  to  men  or  measures, 
and  consequently  the  request  of  the  Jersey  City  representatives 
that  certain  officials  be  named,  or  certain  enactments  be  passed, 
for  Jersey  City,  is  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course  in  the  general 
caucus.  Thus,  by  controlling,  as  they  expected  to,  the  repre- 
sentatives of  Jersey  City  in  the  two  Houses,  the  Jersey  City 
syndicate  of  office-seekers  was  able  to  name  to  the  general  caucus 
of  the  Legislature  its  own  men  as  local  rulers  in  the  city,  and 
to  put  them  in  office. 

Counselor  Dixon's  new  charter  wiped  out  the  entire  Demo- 
cratic city  government,  and  established  in  its  place  a  retinue  of 
local  boards  for  his  partisan  clients  to  thus  name  through  the 
local  caucus  to  the  general  caucus,  and  through  the  general 
caucus  to  the  joint  meeting.  It  established  a  Board  of  Works 
to  be  appointed  by  the  Republican  joint  meeting,  a  Police 
Board  to  be  appointed  by  joint  meeting,  a  Fire  Board  to  be 
appointed  by  joint  meeting,  a  Finance  Board  to  be  appointed 
by  joint  meeting;  and,  while  it  left  the  Board  of  Aldermen, 


88  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


sure  to  be  Democratic  by  the  voice  of  the  people,  standing, 
it  divested  it  of  every  public  function,  except  that  possibly  of 
granting  licenses  to  saloon-keepers.  This  scheme  of  govern- 
ment made  it  possible  for  the  Republican  syndicate  to  impose 
upon  Jersey  City  a  whole  raft  of  partisan  placemen  in  the 
choice  of  whom  the  people  had  not  the  faintest  possible  voice, 
and  who,  if  they  had  sought  their  ofiBces  through  an  election, 
might  have  suffered  overwhelming  defeat.  Its  effect  was,  as 
the  result  showtd,  to  hand  the  municipal  government— its  taxes, 
its  property  and  its  improvements — over  to  an  ambitious  crowd 
of  money- seekers. 

The  Democrats,  in  1870,  had  set  the  precedent  for  legisla- 
tion of  this  character  by  the  introduction  of  several  bills 
providing  for  the  naming  of  local  officers  in  joint  meeting. 
Among  the  others  was  one  deposing  the  Republican  elective 
Police  Commission  in  Newark  and  giving  the  control  of  the 
department  into  the  hands  of  Andrew  A.  Smalley,  Herman 
Schalk,  John  Dwyer  and  David  Anderson,  who  were  named, 
in  the  bill  as  a  Police  Commission  in  its  stead.  That  act 
was  railroaded  through.  Introduced  on  the  night  of  January 
25th,  it  was  passed  to  second  reading  the  following  morning  and 
to  third  reading  at  the  afternoon  session  of  the  Assembly.  As- 
semblymen Gurney  and  Bonsall  made  ineffectual  protests  against 
the  indecorous  haste  with  which  it  was  being  pushed,  and  after 
the  completion  of  the  third  reading,  Wilson,  of  Essex,  made 
the  point  that  it  was  not  rulable  to  advance  a  bill  two  stages  in 
one  day ;  but  Speaker  Abbett  silenced  him  with  an  autocratic 
decision  that  his  objection  was  too  late  to  be  parliamentary — that 
"  the  gentleman  should  have  objected  while  it  was  being  read." 
When  it  reached  the  Senate,  it  was  treated  to  the  same  kind  of 
rapid  transit.  Senator  Taylor,  of  Essex,  attempted  to  substi- 
tute the  names  of  other  gentlemen  for  those  in  the  bill,  but 
Senator  Noah  D.  Taylor,  of  Hudson,  objected,  and  it  went 
through  in  the  shape  in  which  it  had  come  from  the  House. 

The  Jersey  City  act,  fashioned  on  the  same  lines,  was  intro- 
duced into  the  Legislature  by  Assemblyman  George  H.  Farrier. 
When  it  came  up  for  discussion  in  the  House,  Assemblyman 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  89 

Coogan  led  a  fight  against  its  enactment.  Assemblyman  George 
W.  Patterson,  of  Monmouth,  one  of  the  most  erratic  but  bril- 
liant men  who  served  in  the  halls  of  legislation  at  that  time, 
urged  the  submission  of  the  act,  before  it  should  become  operative, 
to  the  people  of  the  city.  Assemblyman  James  F.  Fielder  op- 
posed that  proposition,  and  Patterson,  assured  of  the  popular 
unacceptability  of  the  measure,  volunteered  to  modify  his  amend- 
ment so  that  the  act  should  become  operative  if  only  a  third,  or 
even  a  quarter,  of  the  residents  supported  it  by  their  ballots. 
Assemblyman  Hornblower  interposed  the  technical  objection 
that  the  Legislature  had  no  right  to  delegate  its  power  in  that 
way,  and  the  bill  was  whipped  through  both  Houses  with 
hardly  creditable  speed. 

The  ring  that  took  possession  of  Jersey  City  under  it  made 
the  purposes  of  its  formation  known  in  its  acts  almost  as  soon 
as  it  reached  the  public  offices.  Every  scheme  of  public  im- 
provement was  a  job  for  the  enrichment  of  some  of  its  mem- 
bers. Money  was  squandered  right  and  left.  Tax  rates  were 
screwed  up  to  their  highest  point,  and  the  public  debt  increased 
a  million  at  a  jump.  These  methods  brought  the  administra- 
tion into  such  popular  disfavor  all  over  the  State,  in  course  of 
time,  that  a  committee  was  sent  by  the  Legislature  to  Jersey 
City  to  investigate  the  scandals  of  its  rule,  but  when  they 
reached  the  town  they  were  taken  into  camp  by  the  ring  mana- 
gers and  wined  and  dined  by  Commissioners  Gregory,  Martin, 
Pritchard  and  others  till  they  were  in  a  complacent  humor,  and 
their  eyes  were  willingly  closed  to  all  they  might  have  seen. 

The  condition  of  things  grew  to  be  so  notoriously  bad  that 
Governor  Joel  Parker  was  provoked  into  a  special  message  call- 
ing attention  to  the  need  of  relieving  legislation,  and  the  "  State 
Gazette,"  the  "  Newark  Courier  "  and  other  Republican  papers 
denounced  their  methods  as  robbery.  Senator  McPherson,  then 
representing  Hudson  county,  made  an  attempt  to  restore  popular 
government  by  the  introduction  of  acts  making  the  commissions 
elective.  Not  one  of  his  Republican  colleagues  dared  to  brave 
public  opinion  by  going  squarely  to  the  defense  of  the  ringsters. 
But  for  the  purpose  of  preserving  the  status  that  the  Ring  had 


90  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

created,  they  resorted  to  the  old  expedient  of  meetiog  every 
movement  for  a  change  by  proposing  something  more  liberal, 
which  they,  of  course,  had  no  idea  of  enacting.  So  when  Mr. 
McPherson's  bill  taking  from  the  joint  meeting  the  right  to 
appoint  the  local  officials  and  vesting  the  people  with  their 
selection,  reached  the  point  of  consideration  in  the  Senate,  he 
was  confronted  by  petitions,  evidently  gotten  up  under  the  aus- 
pices of  the  ringsters,  for  other  bills  making  an  even  more  radi- 
cal uprooting  of  the  vicious  system  prevailing  there.  Under 
the  pretense  that  they  desired  to  reserve  their  support  for  these 
more  liberal  measures,  the  Republican  Senators  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Taylor,  of  Essex,  and  Conover  voted  against  the  Mc- 
Pherson  bill  and  defeated  it.  Beesley,  Belden,  Bettle,  Havens, 
Hewitt,  Hopkins,  Irick,  Jarrard,  Moore,  Shepard  and  Williams 
cast  the  eleven  adverse  ballots  that  settled  its  fate. 

The  bill  which  they  ostensibly  favored,  and  in  the  interest  of 
which  they  claimed  to  have  defeated  McPherson's  bill,  not  only 
restored  the  right  of  local  self-government  to  the  people,  but 
wiped  out  all  the  commissions,  and  replaced  the  old-time  gov- 
ernment of  the  city  by  a  Mayor  and  a  Board  of  Aldermen.  The 
Republican  House  members  were  making  a  noisy  pretense  of 
pushing  a  measure  of  that  kind,  and  the  Senators  chose  to  take 
the  view  that  it  would  come  to  them  from  the  other  chamber 
for  concurrence.  The  lash  of  public  sentiment  stung  the  House 
members  into  the  consideration  of  a  lot  of  demanded  amend- 
ments to  the  city  charter,  but  they  engaged  in  a  pre-arranged 
quarrel  as  to  which  should  go  through,  and  kept  the  whole  sub- 
ject hung  up  till  at  the  end  of  the  session  nothing  had  been 
done,  and  the  city's  unwelcome  invaders  were  left  in  undisturbed 
possession.  Meanwhile  the  people  had  started  in  pursuit  of  the 
Ring  through  other  avenues,  and  the  excesses  of  the  ringsters 
themselves  helped  to  point  out  to  the  whole  Commonwealth  the 
impolicy  and  danger  of  committing  the  conduct  of  local  affairs 
to  irresponsible  agents  named  by  the  Legislature  and  boards 
made  up  of  men  in  whose  selection  the  people  had  no  voice,  but 
whose  rule,  however  obnoxious,  the  communities  were  obliged 
to  submit  to.     Some  members  of  the  Board  of  Works  were  in- 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  91 

dieted  for  fraud  in  connection  with  the  purchase  of  real  estate 
needed  for  the  city's  use,  and  the  members  of  the  Police  Com- 
mission were  brought  up  with  a  round  turn  for  malfeasances  of 
other  kinds. 

These  convictions  served  to  draw  the  attention  of  the  State  to 
the  corrupt  condition  of  things  in  Jersey  City  and  to  emphasize 
the  idea  that  that  kind  of  a  government  established  over  the 
heads  of  the  people  was  not  the  most  perfect  system  of 
municipal  government  imaginable.  But  a  few  months  later  the 
State  was  treated  to  a  more  picturesque  object-lesson  on  the  sub- 
ject, consequent  upon  the  disappearance  from  the  City  Hall  of 
Alexander  Hamilton,  the  ring  City  Treasurer,  with  thousands 
of  the  city's  money.  Police  Inspector  Benjamin  F.  Murphy's 
romantic  pursuit  of  him  among  the  outlaws  of  lower  Texas  and 
Mexico  served  to  bring  the  system  he  represented  into  the 
brighter  glare  of  publicity.  Because  of  its  importance  in  giv- 
ing drift  to  public  discussion,  as  well  as  for  its  own  intrinsic 
interest,  the  details  of  this  incident  are  worth  narrating. 

Hamilton  was  a  low-lived  fellow,  given  to  evil  associations, 
and  the  first  notion,  when  it  was  learned  that  he  was  missing, 
was  that  he  had  gone  off  on  a  bit  of  a  spree  with  Winetta  Mon- 
tague, a  vivacious  variety  actress  who  had  recently  appeared 
upon  the  boards  of  a  Jersey  City  theatre.  His  continued 
absence  and  the  discovery  that  he  had  robbed  the  treasury  soon 
led  to  the  conviction,  however,  that  if  he  had  gone  with  her  he 
had  gone  to  stay. 

The  first  tidings  of  his  whereabouts  were  brought  several 
months  later,  in  a  dispatch  received  by  Chief  of  Police  Benjamin 
Champney,  of  Jersey  City,  from  a  constable  named  Carson,  in 
Brownsville,  Texas.  A  stage- driver,  who  had  just  come  into 
Brownsville  from  Corpus  Christi,  told  the  story  of  an  anxious 
traveler  who  had  tried  to  board  his  coach. 

"My  business  is  urgent,"  this  stranger  had  said,  when  he 
feared  that  for  want  of  room  he  might  not  be  admitted  to  the 
coach,  "  and  I  must  reach  Mexico  at  once  if  it  costs  a  fortune." 

A  desperado  named  Hutchinson  who  overheard  him  volun- 
teered to  take  him  to  Mexico  for  a  hundred  dollars,  and  when 


92  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

Hamilton  accepted  him  for  an  escort,  Hutchinson  took  his 
cousin,  Thomas  Parker,  who  was  the  Chief  of  Police  of  Corpus 
Christi  and  just  as  bad  a  man  as  himself,  into  his  confidence. 
These  two,  before  starting  out  with  him,  sent  couriers  ahead  to 
notify  outlaw  confederates  of  theirs  that  they  had  a  rich  victim 
in  tow,  and  when  Hamilton  had  been  carried  forty  miles  beyond 
the  town,  Parker  and  three  pals  who  joined  him  overpowered 
him  and  took  $7,500  in  cash  from  him.  Hamilton  had  cun- 
ningly concealed  the  rest  of  his  plunder,  and,  believing  that  they 
had  stripped  him  of  all  he  had,  they  handed  him  over  to  Pedro 
Manuel,  one  of  their  gang,  and  ordered  him  to  conduct  him 
into  Mexico. 

"  If  he  doesn't  reach  Mexico  safely,"  Parker  cautioned  Pedro 
as  he  parted  from  him,  "  we'll  take  your  brother's  life  in  Corpus 
Christi." 

Pedro,  on  reaching  Brownsville  with  his  charge,  boasted  of 
the  robbery  on  the  plains;  and  a  woman  whose  husband  he  had 
killed,  overhearing  him,  confided  the  story  to  Chief  Carson. 
Carson  at  once  surmised  that  the  traveler  was  no  other  than  the 
missing  Jersey  City  defaulter  and  hastened  to  notify  the  Jersey 
City  police.  Inspector  Benjamin  F.  Murphy  was  fitted  out 
with  railroad  passes  within  an  hour  after  the  dispatch  arrived 
and  sent  in  pursuit.  When  he  reached  Indianola,  he  learned  of 
the  Corpus  Christi  incident  and  employed  a  boatman  to  carry 
him  across  the  bay  to  that  town. 

"  May  I  leave  my  satchel  with  you  ?"  he  asked  of  the  seaman 
when  he  was  preparing  to  depart. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  laughed  the  boatman,  with  cheerful  good  nature. 
"  The  other  night  I  had  the  valise  of  the  Treasurer  of  New 
Jersey,  with  a  million  in  it,  for  a  piller.  If  I'd  a  known  on 
it,  there'd  a'  bin  another  cap'n  on  this  ferry  to-day." 

When  Murphy  reached  Corpus  Christi,  he  learned  that  all 
the  officials  and  outlaws  of  the  region  were  after  Hamilton  to 
rob  him  in  their  various  ways.  Hamilton,  himself  realizing 
that  he  had  fallen  among  a  lot  of  thieves,  had,  meanwhile, 
offered  a  notorious  outlaw,  known  as  "  Happy  Jack,"  any 
amount   of   money  to   protect  him,  and  "  Happy  Jack "  had 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  93 

handed  him  over  to  Cortinas,  a  famous  Mexican  bandit  who  had 
just  proclaimed  himself  Mayor  of  Matamoras.  Inspector  Mur- 
phy was  disposed  to  have  an  interview  with  Cortinas  at  once, 
but  a  rative  advised  him  to  wait  for  a  few  minutes,  till  a  pend- 
ing revolution  was  over.  His  curiosity,  of  course,  prompted 
him  to  go  to  the  City  Hall,  which  was  the  center  of  excitement 
at  the  time,  and  he  found  it  in  the  possession  of  a  lot  of  the 
most  desperate- looking  thugs  and  cut-throats  he  had  ever  seen 
in  his  life. 

"  Who  demands  possession  of  this  town  from  me  now  ? " 
Cortinas  shouted,  stepping  proudly  into  their  midst.  "Click," 
"  click,"  "  click,"  was  the  response.  A  hundred  cocked  pistols 
showed  that  his  gang  was  prepared  for  any  man  who  dared  to 
dispute  his  authority.  If  there  was  one  there  to  say  him  "  nay," 
he  was  silent,  prudently  under  the  circumstances,  and  Cortinas 
commanded  an  easy  acquiescence  in  his  usurpation.  After  wit- 
nessing this  entertaining  exhibition  of  political  methods  in  Mexico, 
Murphy  concluded  that  it  would  be  wise  to  have  company  when 
he  went  to  see  Cortinas,  and  he  took  Colonel  Corbin,  who  was 
then  in  command  of  Fort  Brown,  Texas,  and  United  States 
Consul  Wilson  with  him.  Cortinas  was  in  his  adobe  hut,  just 
outside  the  city,  at  the  time  of  their  visit.  Hamilton  was  there 
too,  but  concealed  from  view  behind  portieres.  When  Murphy 
made  his  demand,  Cortinas  pretended  never  to  have  heard  of 
the  fugitive,  and  it  was  so  plain  in  all  their  subsequent  nego- 
tiations that  the  outlaw  intended  to  keep  Hamiliton  under  his 
wing  as  long  as  he  had  a  dollar  to  hand  up,  that  Murphy  aban- 
doned all  hope  of  bringing  him  home,  and  came  home  himself. 

A  couple  of  months  later,  the  bell  of  Murphy's  house  door 
rang,  and  the  servant  announced  that  a  man  with  the  aspect  of 
a  tramp  wanted  to  see  him.  When  Murphy  stepped  to  the  door, 
who  should  be  there  but  Hamilton,  shabby  and  broken-spirited, 
and  come  to  surrender  himself  into  the  hands  of  the  law  !  Cor- 
tinas had  "  protected  "  him-  out  of  every  dollar  he  had,  then 
shipped  him  to  Brazil  in  a  sailing  vessel,  and  left  him  there  to 
make  his  way  home  as  best  he  could.     A  few  days  later,  he  was 


94  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

taken  before  Judge  Bedle.  His  plea  of  guilty  was  entered,  and 
a  sentence  of  three  years'  imprisonment  was  imposed  upon  him. 

These  convictions  and  this  picturesque  pursuit  of  Hamilton 
served  admirably  to  point  the  moral  for  the  opponents  of  the 
system  of  legislative  commissions.  The  agitation  for  the  passage 
of  a  general  law  to  settle  disputes  between  rival  railroad  cor- 
porations had  served  to  suggest  a  like  remedy  for  the  protection 
of  the  municipalities  against  the  abuses  of  public  functions  that 
were  making  Jersey  City  a  public  scandal.  If  it  were  politic 
to  do  away  with  special  legislation  in  the  interest  of  specified 
railroad  syndicates,  why  not  more  politic  to  put  an  end  to  the 
possibility  of  such  special  laws  as  these  that  had  placed  this 
luckless  community  at  the  mercy  of  a  gang  of  looters  who  hap- 
pened to  have  the  ear  of  the  Legislature?  So  there  came  to  be 
a  pronounced  sentiment  all  over  the  State  in  favor  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  cities  and  counties  and  of  the  regulation  of  all  other 
interests  that  could  be  so  regulated,  by  a  system  of  general  laws. 

This  could  be  accomplished,  however,  only  by  an  amendment 
to  the  State  Constitution  or  by  the  adoption  of  a  new  Constitu- 
tion. A  new  Constitution  can  be  framed  by  a  convention  of 
delegates  chosen  directly,  under  authority  of  the  Legislature,  by 
the  people.  Upon  its  completion  the  work  of  the  convention 
must  be  submitted  to  popular  vote  for  acceptance  or  rejection, 
and  in  the  event  of  its  acceptance  by  the  electors  it  supersedes  the 
old  instrument  and  becomes  at  once  the  organic  law  of  the  State. 
Authority  for  a  Constitutional  Convention  is  not,  however,  an 
eagy  thing  to  secure  from  New  Jersey  Legislatures.  The  Senate, 
since  1846,  has  stood  resolutely  against  it,  because  of  a  fear  that 
the  making  of  a  new  Constitution  would  interfere  with  the  basis 
of  Senate  representation.  The  present  Constitution  limits  each 
county  to  one  Senator  without  regard  to  its  size ;  and  in  the  de- 
liberations of  the  Senate,  Cape  May,  with  its  less  than  12,000 
people,  has  as  much  voice  as  Essex  with  her  more  than  300,000, 
or  Hudson  with  her  275,000.  The  larger  counties  have  long 
contended  that  this  disproportionate  system  of  representation 
should  be  remedied,  and  if  they  could  get  a  Constitutional  Con- 
vention they  would  doubtless  see  to  it  that  the  Senate  is  made 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  95 

more  equably  representative.  But  the  smaller  counties,  which 
are  monstrously  over-represented,  outnumber  the  larger  counties, 
which  are  as  monstrously  under-represented,  two  to  one,  and 
their  determination  to  preserve  their  unfair  preponderance  in 
the  Senate  is  the  explanation  of  the  intrepidity  with  which  the 
Senate  has  for  fifty  years  defeated  all  attempts  to  make  a  new 
Constitution. 


CHAPTER  VIII, 


Which  is  a  Short  Chapter  Devoted  to  the  Salient  Points  of  the 
Constitutional  Commission. 


,^^     OVERNOR  PARKER,  however,  determined  to  force 
^V,s^     the  issue.     He  doubtless  saw  that  there  was  no  possi- 


bility of  achieving  anything  through  a  suggestion  for 
a  Constitutional  Convention,  but  in  his  message,  sub- 
mitted at  the  opening  of  the  Legislature  in  1873,  he  neverthe- 
less made  bold  to  propose  it. 

"The  State  Constitution  should  require  general  laws,"  he 
wrote,  "  and  forbid  the  enactment  of  all  special  or  private  laws 
embracing  subjects  where  general  laws  can  be  made  applicable." 

And  then  he  called  attention  to  the  enormous  volume  of 
special  and  private  laws  that  each  Legislature  turned  out. 

"  The  general  public  laws  passed  at  the  last  session,"  he 
remarked,  "  are  contained  in  about  one  hundred  pages  of  the 
printed  volume  of  Sessional  Laws,  while  the  special  and  private 
laws  occupy  over  one  thousand  two  hundred  and  fifty  pages  of 
the  same  book." 

He  recommended  a  Constitutional  Convention  to  put  an  end  to 
this  unwholesome  system  of  legislation,  and  urged  that  the  making 
of  irrevocable  grants  of  special  privileges  to  individuals  or  corpo- 
rations, such  as  had  been  made  to  the  old  Camden  and  Amboy 
monopoly  and  other  railroads  which  had  also  set  up  the  claim 
that  favorable  legislation  granted  to  them  in  their  early  days  was 
in  the  nature  of  a  contract  between  them  and  the  State,  should 
be  forbidden,  and  that  the  new  Constitution  should  require  equal 
taxation  and  general  laws  for  the  government  of  the  municipali- 
ties of  the  State.  The  two  Houses  to  which  this  message  was 
submitted  were  both,  it  may  be  observed  in  passing,  Republican, 
fourteen  of  the  twenty-one  Senators  and  forty-four  of  the 
(96) 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


97 


sixty  Assemblymen  being  of  that  faitii.  They  had  organized 
by  the  selection  of  John  W.  Taylor,  of  Essex,  as  the  presiding 
officer  of  the  Senate,  with  John  F.  Babcock  as  its  Secretary,  and 
of  Isaac  L.  Fisher,  of  Middlesex,  as  Speaker  of  the  Houe^, 
with  Sinnickson  Chew  as  Clerk. 

The  recommendation  was  acted  upon  by  the  Legislature  later 
in  the  session.     For  the  reason  already  explained,  the  suggestion 
that   the   revision    be   made   by   a   Constitutional    Convention 
was    not    accepted,   but 
the  House  authorized  the 
Governor   to   appoint    a 
special  commission  to  pro- 
pose amendments  to  the 
existing  Constitution. 

The  amendment  of  the 
Constitution  by  this 
method  left  it  within  the 
power  of  the  Senate  to 
protect  itself  against  all 
attempts  to  disturb  the 
basis  of  representation. 
By  its  own  terms  the 
Bill  of  Rights  can  be 
amended  only  by  the 
concurrent  action  of  two 
Legislatures  and  the  sub- 
sequent ratification  of  the 

people.  If  the  Senate  were  dissatisfied — or  if  either  House  were 
dissatisfied — with  any  amendment  such  a  commission  might  pro- 
pose, it  could  easily  defeat  its  incorporation  into  the  Constitution 
by  refusing  to  submit  it  to  popular  vote. 

The  Constitutional  Commission  consisted  of  John  F.  Bab- 
cock, of  Middlesex  ;  Benjamin  F.  Carter,  of  Gloucester ;  Au- 
gustus W.  Cutler,  of  Morris ;  Philemon  Dickinson,  of  Mercer ; 
Dudley  S.  Gregory,  of  Hudson ;  Jacob  L.  Swayze,  of  Sussex ; 
Robert  Gilchrist,  of  Hudson;  Samuel  H.  Grey,  of  Camden,; 
George  J.  Ferry,  of  Essex ;  Robert  S.  Green,  of  Union  ;  Joseph 

7 


John  W.  Taylor. 


^8  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTOX. 

Thompson,  of  Somerset;  John  W.  Taylor,  of  Essex;  John  C. 
Ten  Eyck;  Benjamin  Buckley,  of  Passaic;  and  Abraham  O.  Za- 
briskie,  of  Hudson.  Mr.  Gilchrist  was  unable  to  serve,  and 
William  Brinkerhoff,  a  well- known  Jersey  City  lawyer,  was  sub- 
stituted for  him.  Mr.  Zabriekie's  other  duties  prevented  him, 
too,  from  giving  his  time  to  the  Commission,  and  A.  S.  Hubbel), 
of  Essex,  w£s  named  to  succeed  him. 

When  the  Commission  as  thus  finally  made  up  entered  upon 
its  work,  it  did  not,  of  course,  cpEfine  itself  to  the  consideration 
of  the  particular  reforms  that  had  prompted  its  appointment. 
With  an  intuition  that  it  would  be  worse  than  folly  to  spend 
time  upon  the  question  of  Serate  representation,  it  left  that 
topic  severely  alone,  but  it  made  an  excursion  for  defects  through 
all  the  rest  of  the  State's  Bill  of  Rights  and  applied  remedies 
wherever  it  thought  they  were  reeded.  Among  the  other  reforms 
proposed  was  one  by  Mr.  Gregory  for  biennial  legislative  ses- 
sions, and  another  suggestion  was  that  a  two-thirds  vote  should 
be  required  to  override  the  Governor's  veto.  Mr.  Ten  Eyck 
opposed  the  extension  of  the  veto  power  of  the  Governor  with 
the  epigrammatic  plea  that  the  people  did  not  care  to  make  the 
Governor  a  part  of  the  Legislature.  Mr.  Cutler  warmly  advo- 
cated the  two-thirds  vote  rule,  but  the  proposition  was  defeated 
by  a  tie  vote.  The  school  question — that  part  of  it,  at  any  rate, 
which  related  to  the  raising  of  taxes  for  the  support  of  the 
schools — also  came  largely  into  the  discussion.  Under  the 
existing  Constitution  the  school  moneys  are  raised  by  tax,  based, 
of  course,  on  valuations  from  the  several  counties  in  the  State, 
and  redistributed  by  the  State  among  the  counties  on  the  basis 
of  children.  In  its  practical  operation,  the  county  that  has 
more  dollars  than  school  children  contributes  to  the  maintenance 
of  the  schools  in  other  counties  that  have  more  children  than 
dollars.  Mr.  Cutler  thought  this  system  inequitable,  and  his 
insistment  was  that  each  county  should  get  back  its  money  in 
the  redistribution  on  the  basis  on  which  it  had  paid  it  in — that 
is,  the  school  tax  having  been  raised  in  the  several  counties 
according  to  valuations,  it  should  be  re-apportioned  among  them 
on  the  basis  of  valuations.    Mr.  Grey  urged  the  broader  theory 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  99 


■that  the  schools  are  a  State  institution,  and  that,  without  regard 
to  county  lines,  the  State  should  see  that  they  are  properly  sus- 
tained. The  Commiseion  made  no  recommendation  on  this 
point. 

When  the  question  of  forbidding  the  donation  of  public 
moneys  or  lands  to  religious  corporations  was  reached,  there  was 
no  division  in  the  Commission.  Mr.  Swayze's  amendment  that 
no  public  moneys  should  be  paid  to  any  religious,  church  or 
sectarian  association  met  with  a  ready  acquiescence. 

With  the  experience  of  the  State  in  the  rcatter  of  railroad 
monopolies  and  tax  exemptions  before  his  eyes,  Mr.  Brinkerhoff 
suggested  an  amendment  authorizing  the  Legislature  to  take 
from  persons  or  corpoiations  any  exclusive  privileges  they  en- 
joyed. Mr.  Gregory  desired  an  amendment  for  the  equalization 
of  values  among  the  counties  once  in  four  years,  but  that  was 
defeated.  An  amendment  that  the  penalty  for  the  taking  of  a 
bribe  by  a  member  of  the  Legislature  should  be  forfeiture  of 
membership  and  prosecution  for  perjury  was  proposed  and 
adopted,  but  the  Senate  of  1874  refused  to  submit  it  to  the 
people.  But  overshadowing  all  these  minor  considerations  was 
the  question  of  general  laws.  With  the  experience  of  Jersey 
City  to  enlighten  the  judgment  of  the  Commissioners,  it  was 
treated  with  unusual  fullness,  and  a  number  of  recommendations 
were  made  to  the  Legislature.  The  most  important  of  these 
forbade  the  passage  of  private,  local,  or  special  laws  regulating 
the  internal  affairs  of  towns  or  counties,  or  for  the  appointment 
of  local  officers  or  commissioners  to  regulate  municipal  affairs, 
and  directed  that  the  Legislature  should  pass  general  laws  pro- 
viding for  the  cases  enumerated,  and  for  all  other  cases  which, 
in  its  judgment,  could  be  provided  for  by  general  laws. 

The  Legislature  that  went  to  Trenton  at  the  opening  of  the 
session  of  1874  to  consider  these  amendments  was  overwhelm- 
ingly Republican  in  both  branches.  The  Senate,  with  fourteen 
Republicans  and  seven  Democrats  in  it,  re-elected  John  W. 
Taylor  President  and  John  F.  Babcock  Secretary.  The  thirty- 
three  Republicans  in  the  Assembly  advanced  Garret  A.  Hobart^ 
the  florid-faced  and  smooth-tongued  statesman  from  Passaic,  to 


100  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

the  Speaker^s  chair,  over  Andrew  Jackson  Smith,  who  had  the- 
votes  of  the  twenty- seven  Democratic  members. 

The  Republican  majority  on  joint  ballot  was  thirteen,  and 
there  were  some  unusually  able  men  on  the  floor  of  each 
chamber.  John  R.  McPherson  was  still  in  the  Senate  from 
Hudson ;  the  courtly  John  Hopper  was  his  colleague  from 
Passaic,  and  Frederic  A.  Potts,  a  millionaire  coal  operator,  of 
dignified  bearing  and  handsome  presence,  was  there  from 
Somerset.  Among  the  House  members  were  Julius  C.  Fifz- 
gerald,  of  Essex,  who  made  a  notable  reputation  as  a  debater  ; 
the  bright- faced  and  keen-witted  Samuel  Morrow,  from  the  same 
county;  Alexander  T.  McGill,  then  a  smiling  young  lawyer 
from  Hudson  and  son  of  one  of  the  oldest  professors  in  Princeton 
College ;  John  D.  Carscallen,  who  distinguished  himself  by  his 
eloquent  defense  of  the  Jersey  City  commission  government, 
and,  like  McGill,  a  Hudson  man ;  George  O.  Vanderbilt,  of 
Mercer ;  the  irrepressible  Andrew  Jackson  Smith,  of  Mercer ; 
droll  George  W.  Patterson,  "fresh  from  the  battle-fields  of 
Monmouth,"  and  the  soldierly  and  dignified  Captain  Wm.  H. 
Gill,  of  Union. 

In  his  message  Governor  Parker  spoke  commendingly  of  the 
work  of  the  Constitutional  Commission,  which  he  laid  before 
the  members  for  their  consideration. 

"  Seldom  has  a  deliberative  body  convened,"  he  wrote,  "  in 
which  so  little  local  prejudice  or  partisan  feeling  existed,  or  in 
which  greater  patriotism,  wisdom  and  discretion  were  displayed." 
And,  of  course,  the  amendments  suggested  by  the  Commission 
formed  the  chief  topic  of  discussion  in  the  two  Houses.  Senator 
Stone,  of  Union,  a  gentleman  who  had  a  very  thick  tongue,  but 
enjoyed  the  reputation  of  being  a  lawyer  of  unusual  capacity, 
led  a  crusade  against  the  Commission's  suggestion  that  private 
property  shall  not  be  taken  for  public  purposes  without  just 
compensation,  and  secured  its  defeat  by  a  vote  of  seventeen  to 
two.  The  Legislature,  in  fact,  rejected  a  good  many  of  the  sug- 
gestions made  by  the  Commission.  But  those  forbidding  special 
legislation  for  cities  and  counties,  requiring  the  regulation  of 
their  internal  affairs  by  general  laws,  directing  that  property 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  101 

shall  be  assessed  for  taxes  under  general  laws  and  by  uniform 
rules  according  to  its  true  value,  and  declaring  that  no  donation 
of  land  or  appropriation  of  money  should  be  made  by  the  State 
or  any  municipal  corporation  to  or  for  the  use  of  any  society, 
association  or  corporation  whatever — representing  the  essential 
work  of  the  Commission — were  accepted  by  the  two  Houses, 
and  referred  to  the  Legislature  of  1875. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

If  this  Chapter  seems  to  break  the  Continuity  of  the  Narrative. 

Concerning  the  Adoption    of   the   General  Law   System, 

it   is    only    to    show   how    a    new    Governor   was 

Elected  to  Carry  the  Keform  Forward. 


N  the  midst  of  these  movements  for  the  incorporation  of 
the  system  of  general  laws  into  the  State  Constitution, 
Governor  Parker's  term  expired,  and  preparations  were 
made  for  the  election  of  his  successor.  The  ease  with 
which  the  Republicans  had  swept  the  State  in  the  fall  of  1873  led 
them  to  the  belief  that  they  might  win  the  Governorship  in  the 
fall  of  1874  with  a  popular  candidate,  and  George  A.  Halsey,  of 
Newark,  one  of  the  strongest  men  in  the  party,  was,  by  common 
consent,  picked  out  ag  their  nominee.  The  convention  met  early,. 
August  27th,  so  as  to  give  time  for  a  thorough  canvass  of  the 
State.  Senator  Potts  called  it  to  order,  and  J.  Weyman  Jones,, 
of  Hudson,  was  Chairman.  There  was  no  aspirant  in  the  field 
against  Mr.  Halsey,  and  his  nomination  was  made  by  acclama- 
tion. Mr.  Halsey  was  undoubtedly  the  most  popular  man  of 
the  party  in  the  State  at  the  time.  He  was  at  the  head  of  the 
leather  manufacturing  industry,  a  man  of  large  wealth,  and  of 
such  fair  instincts  that  the  hundreds  of  hands  in  his  service  were 
ready  to  speak  in  his  favor  to  the  laboring  voters  in  the  State. 
He  had  been  a  Representative  in  CoDgres3,  and  was  at  one  time 
offered  the  position  of  Register  of  the  United  States  Treasury  by 
General  Grant.  He  was  one  of  the  chief  men  in  the  commis- 
sion named  by  Governor  Randolph  for  the  management  of  the 
insane  asylum  at  Morris  Plains,  said  to  be  the  second  finest 
asylum  of  its  kind  in  the  world.  He  enjoyed  the  confidence 
and  respect  of  the  people  in  the  northern  section  of  the  State,,, 
where  he  was  best  known,  to  an  unusual  degree,  and  was  knowtt 
(102) 


'\^ 


_J 


George  A.  Halsey. 


104  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

to  have  no  sympathy  whatever  with  the  iniquitous  system  of 
Legislative  Commissions,  under  which  the  ring  of  Republican 
jobbers  was  robbing  Jersey  City.  The  sufferings  of  the  people 
of  that  municipality  had  aroused  the  public  concern  and  sym- 
pathy from  one  end  of  the  State  to  the  other.  Other  municipali- 
ties feared  that  the  establishment  of  the  same  system  over  them 
might  subject  them  to  the  same  evils,  and  the  people  everywhere 
were  consequently  aroused  to  the  perils  of  the  situation.  The 
countenance  which  the  party  as  represented  in  several  Legisla- 
tures had  given  to  the  system  was  felt  to  be  a  handicap  to 
Republican  success,  and  the  leaders  appreciated  the  necessity  of 
offering  to  the  people  as  its  candidate  for  Governor  a  citizen 
whose  high  character  and  standing  would  be  a  guaraatee  of 
better  methods. 

If  opposition  to  Legislative  Commiesions  was  a  necessary 
qualification  in  a  Republican  candidate,  it  was  an  even  more  im- 
portant desideratum  in  the  selection  of  a  Democratic  candidate. 
The  most  marked  stand  the  party  had  made  on  any  question  of 
public  policy  of  late  years  was  this  which  it  had  taken  against 
the  plan  of  ruling  local  governments  by  men  named  in  Trenton; 
and  in  the  choice  of  the  party's  gubernatorial  candidate,  it  was 
of  first  importance  that  he  should  be  one  whose  record  was  most 
pronounced  on  that  issue.  As  the  presiding  official  of  the  Hud- 
son County  Court  of  Oyer  and  Terminer,  Judge  Joseph  D. 
Bedle  had,  since  his  defeat  in  the  convention  of  1872,  made  a 
notable  record  on  the  all-absorbing  question.  He  had  helped 
to  bring  to  justice  the  servants — yes,  the  chiefs — of  the  ring 
that  had  seizsd  control  of  the  Jersey  City  government.  His 
fervent  charges  to  the  grand  jury  had  led  to  their  indictment 
for  fraud  and  conspiracy ;  it  was  before  him  that  they  had  been 
tried,  and  by  him  that  they  had  been  sentenced.  His  work  on  the 
Bench  had  been  a  burning  protest  against  the  continuance  of  the 
evil.  Not  only  had  he  denounced  the  system ;  he  had  actively 
pursued  the  men  who  benefited  by  it.  An  aroused  sentiment 
therefore  pointed  out  this  rotund  and  cherub- faced  Justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court  as  the  man  of  all  men  to  bear  the  standard  in 
the  gubernatorial  campaign,  and  to  make  all  over  the  State  the 


MODERN    BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  105 

struggle  in  behalf  of  home  rule  which  he  had  so  vigorously 
conducted  in  Hudson.  And  so  when  the  Democratic  State  Con- 
vention met  in  Trenton  three  weeks  after  the  Republicans  had 
put  Mr.  Halsey  forward,  it  was  expected  only  to  go  through  the 
perfunctory  process  of  putting  Judge  Bedle  in  formal  nomina- 
tion, and  there  was  a  cut-and-dried  aspect  about  the  proceedings 
that  really  concealed  an  awful  amount  of  party  enthusiasm. 
Colonel  William  P.  McMichael  called  the  delegates  to  order,  and 
Benjamin  F.  Carter,  of  Gloucester,  whom  the  State  Committee 
made  temporary  Chairman,  gave  way  in  the  permanent  organi- 
zation to  Jacob  Vanatta,  a  keen  Morristown  lawyer,  whom 
Bedle,  when  he  became  Governor,  made  Attorney- General.  On 
the  roll-call  of  counties,  every  one  except  Camden,  which  cast 
three  of  its  votes  for  General  Haight,  of  Monmouth,  and  Bedle's 
own  county  of  Hudson,  two  of  whos3  votes  were  corralled  by 
John  T.  Bird,  of  Hunterdon,  declared  for  Bedle,  and  before  the 
formal  tally  was  begun  Bedle  wag  made  the  unanimous  choice 
of  the  convention.  A  little  incident  of  the  convention  that  be- 
■comes  of  interest  because  of  the  circumstances  surrounding  the 
subsequent  nomination  of  General  McClellan,  was  that  when  a 
delegate  named  McClellan  was  proposed  by  the  Salem  delegation 
as  its  member  of  one  of  the  committees,  the  whole  convention, 
mistaking  the  name  for  that  of  the  famous  hero  of  Antietam, 
rose  to  its  feet  and  broke  into  the  wildest  demonstrations  of 
enthusiasm. 

The  fight  at  the  polls  was  carried  on  by  the  Republicans  on 
straight  party  lines,  with  little  sly  intimations,  for  the  diversion 
of  the  Democratic  vote,  that  3edle  represented  in  the  fight  only 
the  Randolph  aristocracy  in  the  State  House  Ring,  while  the 
Democrats  forced  the  issue  of  Legislative  Commissions  to  the 
front,  and  made  a  gallant  battle  for  local  self-government.  The 
majority  of  13,233  by  which  Bedle  carried  the  State,  unprece- 
dented in  all  of  the  history  of  State  politics,  except  in  1862, 
when  Joel  Parker  carried  it  by  14,000  and  over,  was  all  the 
more  notable  because  of  Judge  Bedle's  refusal  to  resign  his  place 
on  the  Bench  and  of  his  consequent  inability  to  lead  the  cam- 
paign in  person.     An  incident  of  the  campaign  was  the  destruc- 


106  xMODERN   BATTLES  OF  TEENTON. 

tion  of  the  Kepublican  majority  in  the  lower  House  and  the 
election  of  an  Assembly  more  than  two-thirds  Democratic — 
forty- one  Democrats  to  nineteen  Republicans — to  open  the  new 
administration  in  1875.  The  Republican  hold-overs  in  the 
Senate  enabled  that  party  to  retain  control  of  that  higher  branch 
of  the  Legislature,  however,  and,  so,  to  foil  any  attempts  at 
administrative  reform  that  the  new  Governor  and  the  Demo- 
cratic Assembly  might  set  on  foot. 

At  the  opening  of  the  Legislature  of  1875,  John  W.  Taylor,, 
of  Essex,  entered  upon  his  third  term  as  President  of  the  Senate, 
and  N.  W.  Voorhees,  of  Hunterdon,  succeeded  Babcock  as  Sec- 
retary. The  Democratic  caucus  of  the  Assembly  advanced 
George  O.  Vanderbilt,  of  Mercer,  to  the  Speakership,  and 
selected  John  Carpenter,  Jr.,  of  Hunterdon,  as  Clerk.  The 
session  gave  promise,  because  of  the  importance  of  the  business 
the  two  Houses  had  in  hand,  of  being  an  unusually  interesting 
one,  and  it  was  besides  attended  by  excitements  that  cast  no 
shadows  before.  Action  for  the  second  time  on  the  proposed 
amendments  to  the  Constitution,  and  the  election  of  a  United 
States  Senator  to  succeed  John  P.  Stockton,  were  two  of  the 
things  everybody  knew  they  had  to  do. 

One  of  the  unanticipated  excitements  was  the  removal  of  Mr. 
Carpenter  from  his  Clerkship,  within  a  week  after  he  had  been 
inducted  into  the  office,  on  charges  of  having  entered  into  a  dis- 
creditable deal  concerning  one  of  the  subordinate  places  at  his 
disposal.  In  order  to  secure  votes  for  himself  for  the  Clerkship 
he  had  promised  the  Journal  Clerkship  to  two  men,  one  Sayre 
and  one  Bamford.  It  was  of  course  impossible  for  the  two  to 
have  the  one  position,  and  a  hat  was  brought  and  two  ballots 
were  put  into  it.  The  rivals  drew  from  the  hat  on  the  under- 
standing that  he  who  picked  up  the  one  with  "  No.  1 "  marked 
on  it  was  to  have  the  coveted  place  and  to  recompense  the  other 
with  his  three- months'  note  for  $500  with  Mr.  Carpenter's  in- 
dorsement upon  it.  Bamford  drew  the  lucky  slip  and  handed 
the  promised  note  over  to  Sayre.  No  one  would  ever  have 
heard  anything  about  the  transaction  if,  after  the  drawing,  Mr. 
Carpenter  had  put  Bamford  in  the  promised  position.     He  wa* 


John  P.  Stockton. 


108  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

subjected,  however,  by  the  members  who  had  given  him  his  own 
place,  to  enormous  pressure  for  the  appointment  of  a  third  man, 
and  he  weakly  yielded  to  it. 

Sayre  had  been  shrewd  enough,  immediately  after  he  received 
the  note,  to  sell  it  to  an  innocent  third  party  and  the  disap- 
pointed and  angry  Bamford,  finding  himself  responsible  for  the 
debt  and  minus  the  office  which  he  supposed  he  had  bought 
with  it,  began  a  suit  against  Carpenter  for  misrepresentation  and 
fraud.  The  affair  became  so  notoriously  public  that  the  House 
could  not  close  its  eyes  to  the  transaction,  and  a  committee,  con- 
sisting of  Samuel  Morrow,  Alexander  T.  McGill,  Charles  D. 
Hendrickson,  Henry  Moffett  and  Henry  B.  Wilson,  appointed 
to  inquire  into  it,  concluded  that  from  first  to  last  the  transac- 
tion was  "  wholly  disreputable,"  and  deserving  "  unmistakable 
rebuke"  more  than  mere  censure.  Captain  Gill,  supported 
by  Assemblymen  Carey  and  Edward  F.  McDonald,  of  Hudson, 
endeavored  to  induce  the  House  to  let  Carpenter  out  of  it 
with  a  censure;  but  Assemblyman  Fitzgerald  argued  that 
nothing  short  of  dismissal  would  meet  the  requirements  and 
carried  the  House  by  a  vote  of  forty-three  to  seventeen  with 
him.  Austin  Patterson,  of  Monmouth,  who  had  been  once 
Speaker  of  the  House  himself  and  whose  entertaining  brother 
■George  was  then  a  member,  was  appointed  Carpenter's  successor. 

In  the  first  flush  of  discovery  the  transaction  seemed  to  be  a 
good  deal  blacker  than  it  really  was,  but  when  the  excitement 
had  calmed  down  it  was  seen  that  Mr.  Carpenter  had  planned  on 
personal  profit  for  himself  by  it  and  that  he  was  only  the  unfor- 
tunate victim  of  a  situation  that  he  had  not  been  tactful  enough 
to  avoid.  His  dismissal  from  the  House  service  put  him,  of 
course,  under  a  cloud  for  a  time,  but  within  a  few  years  he  had 
sufficiently  recovered  his  prestige  to  be  elected  for  two  terms  to 
represent  the  county  of  Hunterdon  in  the  State  Senate  and  sub- 
sequently to  serve  the  Senate  itself  as  its  Secretary. 

There  was  much  bitterness  among  the  members  over  the  selec- 
tion of  a  United  States  Senator,  one  of  the  functions  the  Legisla- 
ture was  expected  to  discharge.  The  State  House  managers  had 
warmly  urged  ex-Governor  Randolph  for  the  position,  but  that 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  109< 

party  of  leaders  was  gradually  growing  to  be  unpopular  among 
the  masses.  Randolph  was  obnoxious  because  he  was  believed 
to  have  been  identified  with  the  old  Know-nothing  party,  and 
his  election  to  the  Governorship  was  said  to  have  been  largely 
promoted  by  what  of  that  party  remained  Leon  Abbett  had 
grown  into  prominence  as  a  figure  in  State  politics.  He  had 
shown  himself  to  be  a  man  of  much  force  of  character  and 
great  combativeness,  while  he  was  everywhere  recognized  as  an 
unusually  magnetic  siump  talker,  though  he  had  none  of  the 
graces  of  the  polished  orator — aggressive  and  brainy — in  a  word,, 
he  had  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  maa  of  exceptional  power. 
Without  seeming  to  make  it  his  business  to  attack  the  State 
House  magnates,  he  had  sedulously  intensified  the  impression  that 
they  represented  a  band  of  aristocrats  who  had  no  sympathy 
with  the  workingmen  of  the  State ;  but  now,  on  the  eve  of  the 
senatorial  contest,  he  was  outspoken  in  demanding  the  high 
office  for  a  man  more  in  sympathy  with  the  people.  Senator 
McPherson  joined  hands  with  him  in  an  effort  to  secure  the 
prize  for  Robert  Gilchrist,  the  Attorney- General  of  the  State, 
and  one  of  the  most  dramatic  and  efiPective  pleaders  at  the  bar. 
Senator  Stockton,  the  incumbent,  though  he  represented  a  family 
of  historical  lineage  and  should  have  easily  captured  the  more 
aristocratic  element  in  the  caucus,  was  rudely  pushed  aside  by 
both  factions,  and  the  struggle  for  the  favor  of  the  caucus  lay 
between  Randolph  and  Gilchrist.  Mr.  Gilchrist  made  an  inter- 
esting and  brilliant  campaign  among  the  members,  but  the  State 
House  autocrats,  through  their  control  of  the  party  machinery 
everywhere,  had  succeeded  in  filling  the  legislative  seats  with 
men  whom  they  could  count  on,  and  on  the  second  ballot  the 
caucus  named  Randolph  as  the  party  candidate  for  the  shining 
honor.  But  forty-seven  of  the  forty- nine  Democratic  members 
of  the  two  Houses  seem  to  have  been  present  at  the  caucus.  Of 
those,  twenty-eight  voted  for  Randolph,  fourteen  for  Gilchrist, 
five  for  Stockton.  Randolph  had  an  easy  majority,  and,  of 
course,  all  the  competing  candidates  stood  out  of  his  way.  In 
the  Joint^Convention,  held  two  days  later,  it  fell  to  Abbett's  lot 
to  make  formal  presentation  of   Mr.  Randolph's  name,  and 


110  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

Senator  Sewell,  on  behalf  of  the  Republican  minority,  presented 
ex- Secretary  George  M.  Robeson's  name.  The  Democrats  hav- 
ing a  majority,  Mr.  Randolph  was,  of  course,  elected.  Governor 
Bsdle,  as  a  part  of  the  Randolph  regime,  afterward  punished 
Gilchrist  for  his  contumacy  in  going  into  caucus  as  the  rival  of 
the  ex- Governor,  by  deposing  him  from  the  Attorney- General- 
ship, and  appointed  ex-Governor  Joel  Parker  in  his  stead. 


CHAPTER  X. 

Which  Embraces  the  Story  of  the  Catholic  Protectory  Bill,  and 
Shows  how  One  of  the  Most  Ardent   Religious  Contro- 
versies OF  Recent  Years  Led  to  the  Popular 
Approval  of  the  Constitutional 
Amendments. 


HESE  were,  however,  only  incidents  of  the  history  of 
that  period.  The  thread  of  the  narrative  was  caught 
up  later  in  the  session,  when  the  duty  of  dealing  with 
the  Constitutional  amendments  prepared  by  the  Com- 
mission and  already  approved  by  the  Legislature  of  1874  was 
entered  upon.  Governor  Bedle  had  been  elected  on  the  Home- 
rule  platform,  and  in  his  inaugural  address  he  took  occasion  to 
give  those  of  the  amendments  touching  that  subject  a  fresh 
indorsement. 

"  It  is  plain,"  he  said,  "  that  in  New  York  and  New  Jersey 
the  system  of  legislative  commissions  has  failed.  The  best 
municipal  government  is  that  where  the  people  govern  them- 
selves, and  I  hope  to  see  the  day  when  every  city  in  the  State 
shall  be  governed  by  a  general  law,  guaranteeing  to  it  local  self- 
rule." 

The  Governor's  first  veto,  too,  was  of  a  bill  to  incorporate  a 
little  manufacturing  company  in  Newark  on  the  ground  that  it 
wafe  special,  and  the  sentiment  against  special  laws  and  legisla- 
tive commissions  was  fed  all  through  the  session  by  the  attempts 
to  amend  the  most  vicious  and  obnoxious  features  out  of  the 
Jersey  City  charter.  Assemblyman  McGill,  then  a  smiling 
young  Jersey  City  lawyer,  representing  one  of  the  Hudson  dis- 
tricts, offered  the  bill  aimed  at  these  reforms  that  attracted  the 
most  attention.  It  was  opposed  by  his  Hudson  colleague,  Cars- 
callen,  and  his  Essex  colleague,  Mr,  Kirk,  and  advocated  by 

(111) 


112  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

George  Patterson  and  Mr.  Fitzgerald.  Its  progress  through' 
the  House  was  so  hotly  contested  at  each  step,  however,  that,, 
like  all  the  other  measures  of  that  trend,  it  failed  of  fruition. 

The  pleadings  by  the  Governor,  and  the  ceaseless  agitation  of 
the  Jersey  City  scandals,  were  not,  however,  without  their  effect. 
The  Legislature  took  up  the  amendments  which  had  been 
approved  by  the  Legislature  of  1874  and  formally  concurred  in 
them.  They  had  yet,  before  they  could  become  a  part  of  the 
organic  law,  to  be  submitted  to  a  vote  of  the  people,  and  the 
first  Tuesday  in  the  following  September — the  seventh — was 
designated  by  the  lawmaking  power  for  the  taking  of  the  vote. 

The  special  election  had  no  sooner  been  ordered  than  the 
Legislature  proceeded  to  make  a  record  that  called  forceful 
attention  to  them.  Among  the  amendments,  as  already  stated,, 
was  one  providing  that  no  donation  of  land  or  appropriation  of 
money  shall  be  made  by  the  State  or  any  municipal  corporation 
to  or  for  the  use  of  any  society,  association  or  corporation 
whatever. 

The  Catholic  authorities  of  the  Diocese  feared  that  this  amend- 
ment, with  the  other  forbidding  the  passage  of  special  laws, 
would  prevent  the  carrying  out  of  some  enterprises  that  they 
were  preparing  to  go  into  with  the  aid  of  the  State.  One  of 
these  was  the  establishment  of  a  reformatory  for  the  special  care 
of  children  of  Catholic  parentage.  In  order  to  secure  the  estab- 
lishment of  such  an  institution  before  the  prohibitive  clauses 
could  become  operative,  the  Bishop  had  a  bill  providing  for 
it  prepared,  and  gave  it  to  the  big- bodied  and  big-hearted  As- 
semblyman Doyle,  of  Essex,  to  introduce.  It  contemplated  the 
maintenance  of  an  institution,  to  be  known  as  a  Catholic  Pro- 
tectory, out  of  the  funds  of  the  State ;  established  a  prison,  to 
which  all  the  younger  Catholic  prisoners  should  be  committed, 
and  authorized  the  seizure  by  the  police  of  idle,  truant  and  de- 
linquent children  of  Catholic  parents,  and  their  commitment  to 
its  walls.  The  institution  was  to  be  entirely  under  the  control 
of  the  Church,  and  the  State  was  to  have  no  connection  with  it 
at  all — except  to  pay  the  expense  of  its  maintenance. 

The  mere  introduction  of  the  act  might  have  been  expected  to- 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  113 

arouse  the  people  from  one  end  of  the  State  to  the  other,  but  for 
some  inscrutable  reason  it  lay  unattacked  in  a  committee  of  the 
House  for  weeks.  Not  till  one  of  the  New  York  newspapers 
explained  its  purpose  were  its  opponents  primed  for  a  fight 
against  it.  Mr.  Doyle,  who  introduced  it,  a  big,  jovial,  rollick- 
ing fellow,  made  no  secret  of  its  purpose,  and  frankly  admitted, 
when  he  was  taxed  about  it,  that  it  had  been  sent  to  him  by  the 
Bishop  of  the  Diocese  of  Newark.  Mr.  Doyle  found  its  most 
aggressive  opponent  in  one  of  his  own  colleagues  from  Essex, 
William  H.  Kirk.  Mr.  Kirk  was  a  stalwart  fellow  of  heavy 
build,  with  dark,  overhanging  brow  and  keen  black  eyes,  and 
suggestive,  in  his  methods  of  speaking,  of  a  Presbyterian  Sun- 
day-school teacher.  He  had  not  been  particularly  conspicuous 
in  the  debates  of  the  session  till  this  act  of  his  fellow-member 
aroused  his  combativeness.  When  the  act  was  called  up  in  the 
House  on  final  passage.  Kirk  walked  from  his  desk  solemnly 
down  the  middle  aisle  and  began  an  address  that  was  printed  in 
full  in  every  newspaper  in  the  State.  He  showed  that  the  act 
was  intended  to  establish  by  the  authority  and  with  the  money 
of  the  State  a  penal  institution  that  would  be  exclusively  under 
secular  control,  and  he  urged  that  its  passage  would  be  the  enter- 
ing wedge  against  the  observance  of  the  wholesome  doctrine  of 
the  total  separation  of  the  Church  from  the  State. 

"Not  a  Protestant  in  the  land,"  he  shouted,  "would  have  the 
unblushing  effrontery  to  propose  such  a  bill,"  and  then  advanc- 
ing to  the  Clerk's  desk  he  laid  down  the  protest  of  the  Newark 
Methodist  Episcopal  Conference  against  its  passage.  The  stout- 
lunged  McDonald,  of  Hudson,  maintained  that  there  was  not  a 
provision  in  the  bill  that  had  not  been  adopted  in  New  York, 
Massachusetts  and  England ;  that  there  were  300,000  Catholics 
in  the  State,  and  that  they  would  not  submit  to  having  their 
children  sent  to  an  institution  where  the  love  for  their  religion 
was  likely  to  be  crushed  out,  and  he  insisted  that  the  act  did  not 
call  for  a  cent  of  aid  from  the  State.  Fitzgerald,  of  Essex, 
made  a  swelling  speech  about  the  separation  of  the  Church  and 
the  State,  and  then  wheeled  around  to  the  support  of  the  act. 
T.  S.  Henry,  of  Essex,  professed  to  be  unable  to  see  anything 


114  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

improper  in  the  act,  and  the  sleek  Rabe,  of  Hudson,  went  to  the 
aid  of  the  act  with  the  lawyer's  plea  that  the  incorporation  of 
the  Drew  Theological  Seminary  was  as  much  the  State's  recog- 
nition of  a  Church.  Mr.  Kirk  met  these  criticisms  with  the 
observation  that  the  wicked  feature  of  the  bill  was  that  it 
allowed  the  State  no  voice  in  the  management  of  the  Protectory. 
In  spite  of  Mr.  Kirk's  struggle  against  it  the  House  passed  it 
by  a  vote  of  thirty- six  to  twenty.  The  thirty-six  affirmative 
votes  which  put  it  through  were  cast  by  Assemblymen  Ander- 
son, Blancke,  Bird,  Bogert,  Carrolton,  Carey,  Conover  (W.  V.), 
Dodd,  Doyle,  Fitzgerald,  F.  French,  Gill,  Gordon,  Hendrick- 
,eon,  David  Henry,  T.  S.  Henry,  Magee,  McDonald,  McDonnell, 
McGill,  Patterson,  Pope,  Rabe,  Shann,  Sheeran,  Skellinger, 
;Sutphen,  Swayze,  Swing,  Van  Cleef,  Vanderbilt,  Warrington, 
Wilson,  Woodruff,  Wyckoff  and  Zeluff. 

The  negative  votes  were  given  by  Messrs.  Carpenter,  Cars- 
callen,  Conover,  Edmunds,  Goble,  Halsey,  Kirk,  Lodge,  Mor- 
row, Owen,  Payne,  Scovel,  Taylor,  Teed,  Toffey,  Torbett, 
Voorhees,  Youmans  and  Youngblood.  The  Assemblymen  who 
by  their  absence  from  the  Chamber  at  the  time  the  vote  was 
takeo,  under  suspicion  of  having  dodged,  were  H.  C.  Herring, 
H.  N.  Herring,  Kinnard  and  Moffett. 

Assemblyman  Kirk  had  not  any  idea  what  a  great  man  he 
liad  made  of  himself  by  his  attack  on  the  bill  till  he  went  back 
to  his  constituents  in  Newark.  There  he  was  received  with  the 
imost  effusive  enthusiasm.  The  Order  of  United  American 
Mechanics  arranged  a  demonstration  in  his  favor,  and  a  great 
public  meeting,  attended  by  men  of  all  parties,  was  the  outcome. 
Resolutions  indorsing  his  stand  were  adopted  by  all  the  councils 
of  the  order,  and  his  fight  against  the  bill  was  the  theme  of  the 
ministers  in  half  the  pulpits  in  the  State. 

When  the  act  reached  the  Senate  for  concurrence,  it  was  sent 
to  one  of  the  committees  and  so  emasculated  as  to  be  scarcely 
recognizable.  When  it  made  its  appearance  on  the  Senate  calen- 
dar again,  on  a  report  from  the  committee,  it  was  accompanied 
by  a  still  more  radical  church  measure  that  Senator  Abbett, 
of  Hudson,  had  started  on  its  travels  through  the  two  Houses. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  115 

This  act,  known  as  the  Liberty  of  Conscience  bill,  was  aimed 
.^t  the  admission  of  priests  to  the  State  reformatories,  penal 
institutions  and  asylums.  The  Hudson  Senator  based  his  argu- 
ments for  the  passage  of  the  act  upon  the  broad  constitutional 
provision  protecting  the  citizen  in  his  inestimable  privilege  of 
worshiping  Almighty  God  in  the  manner  most  agreeable  to  the 
dictates  of  his  conscience,  and  on  the  claim  that  some  of  the 
rites  of  the  Catholic  Church  that  might  be  allowable  in  the 
Slate  institutions  were  not  open  to  people  of  that  faith  who  were 
inmates  of  them.  He  succeeded  in  forcing  his  bill  to  a  vote 
before  the  Catholic  Protectory  bill  was  reached  on  the  calendar, 
but  it  was  overwhelmingly  defeated.  Besides  himself,  only 
Senators  Cornish  (Dem.),  of  Warren ;  Dayton  (Dem.),  of  Ber- 
gen ;  Potts  (Rep.),  of  Hunterdon,  and  Sewell  (Rep.),  of  Cam- 
den, voted  for  it. 

The  Catholic  Protectory  bill,  in  the  comparatively  harmless 
and  inoifensive  shape  to  which  the  committee  had  reduced  it, 
was  called  up  for  final  passage  an  hour  later.  It  found  a  warm 
advocate  in  the  courtly  and  elegant  Senator  Hopper,  of  Passaic, 
and  a  warmer  opponent  in  President  Taylor,  the  Essex  Senator. 
When  the  roll  was  called  there  were  but  eight  votes  for  it ; 
twelve  were  against  it,  and  so  it  was  lost.  The  ayes  were 
Abbett,  Blackwell,  Cornish,  Dayton,  Hopper,  Potts,  Sewell  and 
Smith — Potts  and  Sewell  being  Republicans.  The  twelve  nays 
were  spoken  by  Hendrickson,  Hill,  Hopkins,  Jarrard,  Leaming, 
Madden,  Newkirk,  Schultze,  Taylor,  Thorne,  Willetts  and 
Wood,  of  whom  Hendrickson  and  Madden  were  Democrats. 
General  Sewell  explained,  when  his  name  was  called,  that  the 
bill,  as  amended  in  the  Senate,  was  a  mere  title  and  a  colorless 
charter  for  a  benevolent  institution  of  the  Catholic  Church  that 
invested  it  with  no  State  functions,  and  he  could  therefore  see 
no  objection  to  it.  Senator  Stone,  of  Union,  who  was  absent 
when  the  vote  was  taken,  rose  in  his  seat  the  following  day  to 
announce  that  if  he  had  been  on  hand  he  would  have  voted 
against  Abbett's  Liberty  of  Conscience  bill  but  in  favor  of  the 
Protectory  bill. 

The  attempt  to  pass  these  two  bills  aroused  the  State  to  the 


116  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

highest  pitch  of  excitement.  The  spirit  of  the  old  Know- 
nothing  movement  became  rampant  again.  A  few  days  later, 
Robert  S.  Woodruff,  an  unusually  popular  man  in  Trenton,  was 
defeated  in  his  candidacy  for  Tax  Receiver  of  the  city  on  the 
unsupported  assertion  that  his  nomination  had  been  arranged 
by  the  Catholics,  and  the  circumstance  that  revealed  the  effect 
of  this  intimation  agaiost  him  upon  his  chances  was  the  fact  that 
Creveling,  the  Democratic  candidate  for  Mayor  of  the  city,  and 
Shepherd,  the  Democratic  candidate  for  City  School  Superin- 
tendent, were  both  elected  in  the  same  poll  by  as  pronounced 
a  majority  as  that  by  which  he  was  defeated.  In  some  of  the 
towns  of  the  State  an  attempt  was  even  made  to  banish  the 
Bible  from  the  public  schools,  as  a  sort  of  act  of  reprisal ;  and  in 
Union  Hill,  a  little  German  settlement  just  outside  of  Hoboken,. 
such  an  attempt  succeeded,  though  a  Council  of  the  O.  U.  A.  M. 
marched  into  the  Town  Hall  in  a  body  to  protest. 

The  excitement  measurably  subsided  as  the  day  in  September 
designated  for  the  special  vote  on  them  by  the  people  approached, 
and  it  looked  as  if  the  Constitutional  amendments  were  to  be 
allowed  by  the  indifferent  people  to  carry  themselves.  But  the 
old-time  antagonisms  were  stirred  up  afresh  on  the  eve  of  the 
election  by  the  appearance  in  a  Catholic  organ,  known  as  "  The 
Citizen,"  of  an  appeal  to  its  readers  to  vote  against  all  of  the 
amendments.  On  the  Sunday  before  the  day  fixed  for  the  special 
election  a  circular  also  was  read  from  the  Bishop  of  the  Diocese 
in  all  the  Catholic  churches,  admonishing  the  faithful  to  defeat 
the  anti-church  amendments.  To  make  assurance  doubly  sure,, 
they  were  even  solicited  to  vote  against  all  proposed.  For  the 
use  of  those  among  the  parishioners  who  were  disposed  to  sus- 
tain the  general  law  features  of  the  amendments,  ballots  were 
distributed  in  the  churches  with  amendments  numbers  one,  two, 
eight  and  eleven  crossed  out.  These  amendments  were  those  pro- 
hibiting the  use  of  public  moneys  for  sectarian  purposes,  guar- 
anteeing free  schools  forever  and  forbidding  special  legislation. 

The  effect  of  the  announcement  of  these  movements  on  the 
people  was  electrical.  A  call  to  arms  was  sounded  from  Sussex 
to  Cape  May,  and  as  if  moved  by  a  single  impulse  the  masses 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  117 

sprang  to  the  rescue  of  the  imperiled  amendments.  The 
Catholic  contingent  turned  out  in  goodly  numbers,  and  there 
was  more  excitement  at  the  election  booths  than  one  is  accus- 
tomed to  see  even  in  Presidential  years.  The  vote  was  unusu- 
ally large,  and  the  count  of  the  ballots  showed  that  the  entire 
batch  of  amendments  had  been  popularly  approved  by  a  majority 
of  over  40,000.  The  excitements  were  reflected  in  the  elections 
of  members  for  the  Legislature  two  months  later.  A  large  num- 
ber of  the  Democratic  Assemblymen  who  had  voted  for  the  Pro- 
tectory bill  prudently  refused  to  stand  for  re-election.  Doyle, 
its  father,  trusted  to  the  normal  Democratic  majority  of  1,100  in 
his  district  protecting  him  from  defeat,  and  learned  how  sadly 
he  had  miscalculated  when  he  found  himself  snowed  under  by 
an  enormous  adverse  majority  of  2,000.  Assemblymen  Rabe, 
of  Hudson,  and  David  Dodd,  of  Essex,  were  the  only  Demo- 
<!rats  who  had  voted  for  the  bili  and  secured  re-election.  Assem- 
blyman Kirk  was  rewarded  for  his  battle  against  it  by  a  hand- 
some promotion  to  the  Senate,  and  the  Democrats  again  lost 
control  of  the  Assembly. 

The  amendments  thus  handsomely  adopted  became,  of  course, 
part  of  the  State's  Bill  of  Rights  at  once,  and  the  Legislators 
who  went  into  office  immediately  after  their  acceptance  (in 
1876)  found  themselves  hampered,  in  their  efforts  to  please  their 
local  constituencies,  by  the  new  inhibition  against  the  passage  of 
special  laws  and  the  requirement  for  general  laws.  There  was 
a  marked  contrariety  of  view  among  the  lawyers  and  public 
men  as  to  the  exact  interpretation  to  be  put  upon  these  particu- 
lar amendments,  and  Governor  Bedle,  in  his  first  annual  message 
to  the  Legislature  of  1876,  undertook  to  throw  some  light  upon 
the  mooted  question.  He  was  of  the  opinion  that  the  require- 
ment for  general  laws  as  to  cities  was  not  so  broad  as  that  for 
towns  and  counties,  and  that  the  only  restraint  against  the  enact- 
ment of  such  laws  for  cities  was  contained  in  the  other  new 
clause  forbidding  the  naming  of  a  city's  local  rulers  by  the 
Legislature.  He  urged  the  centennial  Legislature  to  proceed 
with  its  work  on  that  line. 

"  The  facility  with  which  designing  men  have  obtained  special 


118  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

laws  to  enable  them  to  prosecute  various  schemes  of  extravagance 
and  fraud  under  the  guise  of  public  improvement  and  benefit 
has  been  the  source  of  much  of  our  municipal  burden,"  he 
wrote.  "  Now  is  the  opportunity,  though  late,  to  strike  a  blow 
for  the  protection  of  our  property  in  municipalities  by  sweeping 
away  the  devices  under  the  forms  of  law  under  which  these 
abuses  have  been  perpetrated,  and  substituting  plain,  just  and 
general  laws,  alike  applicable  to  all  cities." 

The  Legislature  of  1876  was  not  by  any  means  large  enough 
to  meet  the  situation  thus  mapped  out ;  and,  after  floundering 
about  for  weeks  in  a  vain  attempt  to  devise  some  form  of  general 
legislation  that  would  meet  special  emergencies,  the  members 
began  to  flood  the  calendars,  as  usual,  with  bills  of  a  special 
and  local  character,  doubtful  all  the  time  of  their  constitu- 
tionality, but  determined  to  pass  them  and  leave  it  for  the 
courts  to  say  what  they  were  good  for.  Poor,  afflicted  Jersey 
City,  that  expected  to  be  the  immediate  beneficiary  of  the  new 
constitutional  system,  found  herself  in  fresh  embarrassments. 
There  was  no  other  city  in  the  State  whose  affairs  were  admin- 
istered by  legislative  commissioners,  and  any  act  intended  to 
relieve  her  of  hers  was  necessarily  special  and  local  and  conse- 
quently repugnant  to  the  new  constitutional  requirements. 
Senator  Abbett,  however,  framed  a  bill  wiping  out  the  irrespon- 
sible officials  who  controlled  her,  and  when  it  was  taken  into 
court  for  the  constitutional  test  argued  that  as  it  put  the 
city  on  the  same  basis  of  home  rule  with  all  the  other  cities  in 
the  State,  it  was,  though  special  and  local  in  its  application, 
essentially  general  in  its  character.  The  court  sustained  him, 
and  Jersey  City  reached  the  end  of  that  period  of  misrule. 

The  constitutional  prohibition  of  special  legislation  continued 
to  obstruct  the  passage  of  bills,  even  into  Governor  Ludlow's 
administration,  and  the  problem  of  dealing  with  special  local 
interests  was  surrounded  by  so  many  embarrassments  that  a 
revision  of  the  Constitution  seemed  to  be  imperative  and  an 
act  authorizing  the  appointment  of  a  Commission  to  amend  it 
again  was  passed.  Governor  Ludlow  was  of  the  conviction, 
however,  that  proper  effort  would  produce  a  line  of  the  general 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  119 

laws  demanded,  and  in  the  hope  of  forcing  the  Legislature  to 
enact  them,  he  declined  for  a  time  to  name  the  Commissioners. 
Eventually  he  appointed  Leon  Abbett,  H.  N.  Congar  and  John 
T.  Bird.  Barker  Gummere  and  Holmes  W.  Murphy  were 
named  by  the  House,  and  John  J.  Gardner  and  Thomas  S.  Mc- 
Kean  by  the  Senate,  to  act  with  them.  They  never  devised  any 
amendments  that  were  acceptable,  however. 

The  chief  sufferers  by  the  new  constitutional  system  were  the 
members  of  the  lobby  who  had  grown  rich  in  securing  special 
legislation  for  their  clients,  and  the  gangs  of  official  looters  who 
had  found  it  possible  to  override  every  obstruction  that  the  law 
offered  to  the  carrying  out  of  their  programmes  by  a  little 
special  act.  They  both  put  up  with  the  new  order  of  things 
with  ill-disguised  impatience  for  several  years,  but  found  them- 
selves so  often  foiled  in  the  pursuit  of  their  game  by  the  require- 
ment of  general  laws  which  hit  a  good  many  other  communities 
than  the  one  at  which  they  wanted  to  aim,  that  they  became 
clamorous,  finally,  for  the  elimination  of  the  obstructive  amend- 
ments from  the  Constitution  again,  and  for  the  re-opening  of 
the  flaod-gates  of  special  legislation.  The  Legislatures  of  1889 
and  1890  yielded  to  the  pressure  and  directed  the  submission  of 
the  question  to  the  people.  The  movement  placed  the  amend- 
ments in  jeopardy.  It  was  feared  that  the  active  work  of  self- 
seeking  cormorants  might  produce  a  favorable  vote  which  an  in- 
different and  apathetic  public  might  not  take  the  trouble  to 
offset;  but  when  the  day  in  1890  for  the  taking  of  the 
special  vote  arrived,  the  people  showed  themselves  more  alert 
than  they  had  been  expected  to  be,  and  the  proposition  that  the 
amendments  should  be  taken  out  of  the  Constitution  again  was 
negatived  by  a  handsome  majority,  and  these  salutary  prohibitory 
features  of  the  instrument  are  still  a  part  of  it. 

Rev.  Father  Corrigan,  an  independent  Catholic  priest  of  Hobo- 
ken,  subsequently  attempted  to  evade  the  force  of  the  consti- 
tutional prohibition  against  sectarian  appropriations  with  an  act 
bringing  the  Catholic  parochial  schools  measurably  under  the 
wing  of  the  State.  There  had  been  exciting  discussions  between 
this  controversial  rector  and  Bishop  A.  M.  Wigger,  the  head  of 


120  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

the  Diocese  in  which  his  church  is  located,  over  an  educational 
freak  with  religious  leanings  known  as  "  Cahensleyism."  Rev. 
Father  Corrigan  was  of  Irish  descent,  but  full  of  the  American 
spirit ;  Bishop  Wigger  was  of  German  lineage,  and  Father 
Corrigan  openly  accused  him  of  still  being  wedded  to  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  land  of  his  birth — of  being  out  of  sympathy  with 
American  institutions  and  especially  with  the  American  system 
of  public  education.  Their  differences  culminated  in  a  discus- 
sion concerning  the  relations  of  the  Church  to  the  schools,  of  the 
races  to  the  Church,  and  of  all  three — Church,  races  and 
schools — towards  the  Commonwealth.  The  outcome  of  the 
agitation  was  the  preparation  by  the  Hoboken  rector  of  an  act 
embodying  his  idea  of  the  wav  in  which  the  State  could,  in  spite 
of  the  constitutional  prohibition,  be  brought  to  the  aid  of  the 
parish  schools. 

At  that  time  all  the  public  schools  in  the  large  cities  were 
overcrowded,  children  being  turned  away  from  the  doors  every 
day  in  the  week.  Father  Corrigan  seized  upon  the  circumstance 
as  a  means  of  popularizing  his  plan  for  the  joint  conduct  of  the 
schools  by  the  Catholic  Church  and  the  State. 

His  bill  proposed  to  throw  the  parish  school  buildings  open 
to  State  use  just  as  though  they  were  public  school  buildings, 
and  the  ordinary  routine  of  public  school  work  was  to  be  pur- 
sued in  them  till  the  afternoon ;  then  the  priests  and  the  Sisters 
were  to  be  allowed  to  go  in  among  the  pupils  to  give  them  an 
hour  or  two  of  religious  instruction. 

The  idea  did  not  meet  with  the  approval  of  the  higher 
authorities  of  the  Church,  but  Father  Corrigan  determined  to 
press  it  in  spite  of  them.  A  little  handful  of  priests  from  other 
sections  of  the  State  who  had  rather  sided  with  him  in  his 
differences  with  Bishop  Wigger  accompanied  him  to  Trenton  one 
Monday  evening  during  the  session  of  1893,  and  were  given  the 
freedom  of  one  of  the  reception-  rooms  of  the  Executive  Chamber. 
The  air  of  the  monastery  sombered  the  brilliantly-lighted  apart- 
ment, as  around  the  table  sat  the  little  assemblage  of  priest?, 
with  clean-shaven  faces  and  habits  of  severe  black  covering  their 
well- nourished  forms  from  their  ears  to  their  heels,  awaiting  the 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  121 

devotees  of  the  Church  who  had  been  summoned  from  their 
seats  in  the  Senate  and  Assembly  to  be  importuned  to  present 
the  act  for  the  consideration  of  the  Legislature.  The  prim,  tall 
form  of  the  young  Essex  Senator,  Michael  T.  Barrett,  was  the 
first  to  enter  the  august  presence.  To  their  surprise  and  con- 
sternation he  argued  against  it,  and  when  pressed  against  his 
judgment  was  constrained  to  refuse  point-blank  to  have  anything 
to  do  with  the  movement.  Senator  William  D.  Daly,  of  Hud- 
son, was  next  called.  Though  not  a  Catholic,  he  stood  for  a 
large  Catholic  constituency.  He  declared  his  unwillingness  in 
no  less  emphatic  terms.  And  then  young  Thomas  J.  O'Brien, 
of  Morris,  looking  for  all  the  world  like  a  priest  himself,  bowed 
himself  respectfully  out.  , 

The  proposition  had  a  political  as  well  as  a  Church  aspect. 
There  had  been  signs  of  a  renewal  of  the  proscriptive  Know- 
nothingism  of  the  past ;  and  the  throngs  in  the  lighted  corridors 
had  begun  to  discuss  the  possible  effect  of  the  movement  upon 
Democratic  prospects,  when  a  portly  gentleman  moved  among 
them  towards  the  conference-room.  His  hair  was  tinged  with 
gray,  but  his  ruddy  face  and  bright  brown  eyes  were  very  young. 
Like  those  whom  he  was  seeking,  his  face  was  clean-shaven,  and 
he  wore  a  suit  of  black.  Everyone  greeted  him  as  Senator, 
bowed  deferentially  as  he  went  by,  and  stepped  back  to  allow 
him  to  pass,  and  when  the  door  of  the  room  closed  on  him,  the 
whisper  went  around  the  corridor  that  Senator  Smith  would  put 
his  foot  on  the  project  as  no  other  man  in  the  State  could.  The 
handsome  Newark  leader,  then  on  the  eve  of  being  chosen  to 
be  McPherson's  colleague  in  the  United  States  Senate,  was  a 
Catholic  himself,  in  touch  with  the  higher  authorities  of  the 
Church.  For  an  hour  he  was  closeted  with  the  priests.  He 
argued  against  the  measure  from  every  standpoint,  and  because 
of  his  influence  in  Church  circles,  hoped  to  dissuade  its  pro- 
moters. The  only  effect  of  his  protests  was  to  dash  their  hope 
of  eventual  success,  but  they  persisted  in  their  calls  for  members 
till  the  most  reckless  of  all  of  them  had  been  called  to  their 
hearing.  Everybody  knew  him  as  "Mike"  Coyle.  Repre- 
senting a  Hoboken  district  so  deep-dyed  in  its  Democracy  as  to 


122  MODERN  BATTLES   OF  TRENTON. 

pardon  any  freak  its  representative  might  be  tempted  to  indulge 
in,  he  finally  consented  to  take  the  bill  and  have  it  placed  upon 
the  Assembly  calendar  for  passage. 

The  moment  it  made  its  appearance,  it  was  smuggled  into  a 
committee-room  and  kept  there,  secluded  from  the  public  view^ 
till  the  Legislature  broke  up  and  went  home. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

Which  is  the  Story  of  Mr.  McPherson's  Successfttl  Battle  Against 

THE  State  House  Magnates  and  op  the  Excitements 

Attending  his  First  Election  to  the  United 

States  Senate. 


iU  ARE  not  to  be  betrayed  into  the  idea  that  this  dis- 

f  cursive  narrative  of  the  efforts,  first  to  overthrow,  and 
afterwards  to  evade  the  force  of  the  constitutional 
amendments,  brings  us  to  the  end  of  our  story.  We 
have,  indeed,  thus  far,  closely  followed  the  history  of  the  Com- 
monwealth only  up  to  the  close  of  the  Legislature  of  1876. 
The  fall  of  that  year  found  the  nation  plunged  into  one  of  the 
most  exciting  of  presidential  struggles,  and  the  State  absorbed 
in  its  legislative  elections,  because  there  was  a  United  States 
Senatorship  at  stake.  Randolph  had  succeeded  Stockton  in 
1875.  The  stately  Frederick  T.  Frelinghuysen  was  to  sur- 
render the  other  seat  in  the  Senate  in  March,  1877,  and  to  the 
Legislature  to  be  chosen  in  the  fall  of  1876  would  fall  the  nam- 
ing of  his  successor.  The  chances  were  with  the  Democrats  in 
the  legislative  contests,  because  the  State  seldom  failed  to  assert 
her  Democracy  in  presidential  campaigns.  She  had  given  her 
vote  to  Pierce  in  1852,  to  Buchanan  in  1856,  to  McClellan  in 
1864,  to  Seymour  in  1868.  Only  the  multiplicity  of  Democratic 
candidates  had  enabled  four  Lincoln  electors  to  carry  the  poll 
in  1860.  Her  failure  to  support  Greeley  in  1872  was  due  to  the 
fact  that  he  had  once  been  a  Republican,  and  was  but  the  expres- 
sion, after  all,  of  the  intensity  of  her  Democratic  sentiment ;  and 
when  her  voters  went  to  the  polls  in  the  fall  of  1876  to  bestow 
her  seven  votes  in  the  Electoral  College,  they  tarried  long  enough 
to  cast  their  votes  for  Democratic  candidates  for  State  Senator 

and  Assembly. 

(123) 


124  MODERN   BATTLES   OF  TRENTON. 

But  the  local  victory  was  less  marked  than  had  been  the  ex- 
pression of  preference  as  between  the  national  candidates. 
Tilden's  majority  over  Hayes  was  between  12,000  and  13,000. 
The  Democrats  captured  the  Sec  ate  by  a  single  majority.  The 
Assembly,  that  on  the  basis  of  the  presidential  vote  should  have 
had  a  working  Democratic  majority,  had  been  reduced  by  the 
Republican  Redistrictirg  Act  to  a  tie.  With  so  narrow  a 
majority  in  their  favor,  the  time  would  seem  inopportune  for  a 
factional  rivalry  between  the  Democrats  over  the  United  States 
Senatorship,  but  the  controversy  goes  into  history  as  involving 
the  first  serious  and  determined  challenge  of  the  supremacy  of 
the  State  House  managers.  Leon  Abbett  and  John  R.  Mc- 
Pherson,  who  had  engaged  in  a  sort  of  preliminary  skirmish 
with  them  in  the  senatorial  contest  of  1875,  now  threw  down 
the  glove  to  them  in  solid  earnest. 

That  McPherson  and  Abbett  were  preparing  for  just  such  a 
struggle  as  that  which  they  had  now  determined  to  make  has  been 
apparent  from  what  has  been  said  of  them  in  previous  chapters. 
In  their  legislative  careers  both  had  devoted  themselves  to  the 
cause  of  the  working  masses.  They  now  openly  charged  that 
the  Democratic  leaders  at  the  State  House  were  aristocrats, 
devoted  to  the  worship  of  the  money  power,  and  out  of  sympa- 
thy with  the  masses  of  the  party  who  were  obliged  to  depend 
upon  their  e very-day  work  for  their  every- day  bread  and  butter. 
Neither  had  let  pass  unimproved  any  opportunity  that  the  pro- 
gress of  legislation  afforded  to  let  the  masses  know  that  he 
was  endeavoring  to  secure  for  them  that  recognition  in  party 
councils  which  the  prouder  and  richer  leaders  of  the  party  had 
not  though  it  worth  the  while  to  accord  to  them.  Abbett  was 
especially  fertile  in  creating  situations  that  placed  the  exclusive 
system  of  party  rule  that  the  leaders  at  the  State  House  enforced 
in  the  most  striking  contrast  with  the  more  popular  system 
which  he  and  McPherson  wanted  to  establish.  Mr.  McPherson 
posed  less  than  Abbett,  but  he  proved  an  effective  ally  because 
of  his  skill  and  tact  as  a  managing  politician. 

Both  were  favored  sons  of  Hudson.  Abbett  had  come  from 
Philadelphia,  located  in  Hoboken,  represented  one  of  the  dis- 


John  R.  McPherson. 


126  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

tricts  there  in  the  Assembly,  moved  to  Jersey  City,  been  sent 
from  there  to  the  Assembly  again,  and  risen  to  the  Speakership. 

Mr.  McPherson  had  spent  the  larger  part  of  his  life  in  busi- 
ness in  Hudson  City,  as  that  part  of  the  Heights  immediately 
west  of  old  Jersey  City  was  known  before  its  consolidation  with 
the  old  town.  He  had  been  successful  and  grown  rich.  There 
was  scarcely  a  business  enterprise  of  any  kind  set  on  foot  there 
without  his  active  participation.  He  had  dabbled  in  politics 
from  his  early  manhood,  and  had  been  the  ruling  factor  for 
years  in  the  Hudson  City  Council.  Old  George  P.  Howell,  a 
brother-in-law  of  the  late  General  Grant,  who  was  his  Repub- 
lican opponent  when  he  first  sought  a  seat  in  that  body,  stood  at 
the  polls  all  day  on  election  day,  and  asked  even  his  own  party 
friends  to  vote  for  McPherson.  McPherson's  path  to  the  seat 
was,  therefore,  an  easy  one,  and  once  there  he  proved  himself  to 
be  so  valuable  a  public  servant  that  no  attempt  was  ever  after- 
wards made  to  dislodge  him.  After  the  consolidation  of  Hud- 
son City  with  Jersey  City  he  set  his  eye  upon  a  seat  in  the  State 
Senate,  and  found,  when  he  sought  it,  that  Leon  Abbett  had 
entered  the  lists  in  advance  of  him.  There  was  a  rivalry — a  not 
unfriendly  one — between  the  two  for  the  support  of  the  Demo- 
cratic leaders  of  the  county,  and  as  the  hour  for  the  holding  of 
the  county  convention  approached  they  saw  that  they  had  about 
evenly  divided  the  local  Democratic  strength  between  them. 
If  each  had  pursued  his  canvass  to  the  end  on  lines  of  bitter- 
ness and  either  had  triumphed  over  the  other,  the  resulting 
animosities  might  have  divided  the  Democratic  party  against 
itself,  and  given  the  county  a  Republican  representative  in  the 
upper  branch  of  the  Legislature.  To  escape  that  they  concluded 
that  it  was  wiser  to  concede  to  one  another,  and  finally  an 
arrangement  was  made  by  which  a  board  of  arbitrators,  that 
both  were  to  choose,  should  determine  who  of  them  should  retire, 
in  the  interest  of  harmony,  from  the  contest.  The  board  tied  as 
between  them,  but  one  of  Abbett's  supporters  gave  way  to 
McPherson,  and  Mr.  Abbett  stepped  aside  to  allow  Mr.  Mc- 
Pherson to  take  a  nomination  without  further  opposition. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  an  alliance   between   these  two 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  127 

powerful  leaders  that  has  its  sequel  in  all  the  subsequent  history 
of  the  State  traversed  in  the  pages  of  this  book.  It  was  an 
alliance  of  two  men  who  had  come  up  from  the  humblest 
beginnings  to  fight  the  moneyed  aristocracy  that  ruled  the  party 
with  a  rod  of  iron  from  the  State  House  at  Trenton.  Inci- 
dentally some  of  the  work  of  both  has  been  sketched  in  previous 
chapters.  The  rest  of  these  pages  is  devoted  largely  to  telling 
the  story  of  the  rest  of  their  careers.  They  had  made  their 
first  diversion  against  the  State  House  autocracy  when,  at  the 
time  of  the  election  of  Theodore  Randolph  to  the  United  States 
Senate,  in  1875,  they  supported  the  candidacy  of  his  rival, 
Robert  Gilchrist.  Ex-Governor  Randolph  achieved  the  office 
in  spite  of  them,  but  the  fight  made  for  Gilchrist  was  of  such  a 
character  as  to  convince  the  State  House  leaders  that  they  had 
no  mean  antagonists  in  the  two  opposition  leaders  who  put  Mr. 
Gilchrist  in  the  field. 

There  were  whispers,  as  the  campaign  that  produced  the 
Legislature  of  1877  progressed,  that  Mr.  McPherson  had  him- 
self become  ambitious  for  the  United  States  Senatorship,  and 
that  if  the  majority  on  joint  ballot  were  Democratic  he  expected 
to  succeed  Frederick  T.  Frelinghuysen.  Mr.  McPherson  had 
recently  invented  a  system  for  the  safe  and  comfortable  trans- 
portation of  cattle  from  the  far  West  to  the  great  abattoirs  of 
the  East  that  the  railroads  were  ready  to  use  and  that  promised 
an  enormous  fortune  to  him.  It  was  while  working  at  Wash- 
ington to  ii-fluence  a  little  favoring  national  legislation  to  make 
the  assurance  of  the  fortune  doubly  sure,  that  he  became  in- 
spired with  the  ambition  to  sit  in  the  Senate. 

The  year  1876,  when  the  contest  between  the  parties  for  the 
control  of  the  Legislature  that  was  to  elect  the  new  Senator  took 
place,  was  even  more  notable  in  national  history  than  in  the 
State.  It  was  the  Centennial  year ;  it  was  also  the  year  when 
the  historical  rivalry  between  Tilden  and  Hayes  for  the  Presi- 
dency occurred.  Nowhere  in  the  country  did  the  party  antag- 
onisms which  that  rivalry  aroused  manifest  themselves  more 
violently  than  in  New  Jersey.  Having  carried  the  State,  and,  as 
they  believed,  the  nation,  for  Tilden,  there  was  a  prevailing  feel- 


128 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


iDg  among  the  Democrats  of  the  Commonwealth  that  the 
party  might  rather  fight  for  its  rights  than  see  the  Presidency 
stolen  from  them.  The  situation  was  so  serious  that  a  num- 
ber of  leading  Jerseymen  held  a  meeting  in  New  York  to 
prepare  for  it,  at  which  a  committee,   consisting    of   Robert 

Gilchrist,  Ashbel  Green, 
Gershom  Mott,  Wm.  W. 
Shippen,  John  P.  Stock- 
ton, Jacob  Vanatta  and 
Garret  D.  W.  Vroom, 
to  consider  the  political 
situation  and  determine 
what  the  public  duty  of 
New  Jersey  might  be  in 
the  expected  crisis  was 
appointed.  The  move- 
ment seems  to  have  been 
scarcely  more  than  an  in- 
dication of  the  super- 
heated condition  of  the 
public  mind — for  when, 
at  the  end  of  the  tactical 
campaign  between  the 
adherents  of  the  two 
presidential  candidates  in 
Congress,  Rutherford  B.  Hayes  was  declared  by  an  extra- Consti- 
tutional Commission  to  have  been  elected,  New  Jersey,  with  the 
rest  of  the  nation,  accepted  the  situation  with  nothing  more 
violent  than  a  protest. 

Several  of  her  statesmen  had  in  fact  done  their  part  in  fashion- 
ing the  result.  Frederick  T.  Frelinghpysen  was,  as  already 
stated,  her  representative  in  the  Senate  of  the  nation.  His  was 
one  of  the  eight  votes  cast,  on  the  day  before  he  stepped  out  of 
his  high  position,  in  the  Commission  of  fifteen  in  support  of 
Hayes'  title.  Joseph  P.  Bradley,  who  had  been  a  railroad 
lawyer  in  Newark,  and  risen  to  a  position  on  the  Bench  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  cast  a  second  of  the  eight 


Garret  D.  W.  Vroom. 


MODERN   BA.TTLES   OF   TRENTON.  129 

votes.  Ashbel  Green  was  of  those  who  pleaded  Tilden's  cause 
before  the  Commission,  and  Cortlandt  Parker,  a  stately  lawyer 
of  Newark,  had  been  one  of  the  visiting  statesmen  who  assisted 
to  arrange  matters  in  Louisiana  in  Hayes'  interest. 

When  the  Legislature  came  to  Trenton  early  in  January  ta 
elect  a  successor  to  Mr.  Frelinghuysen,  the  perilously  close 
Democratic  majority  dovetailed  with  the  presidential  complica- 
tions to  make  the  issue  of  the  senatorial  struggle  a  doubtful 
one.  With  eleven  Democrats  and  ten  Republicans  in  the  Senate 
and  the  Assembly  thirty  on  each  side — with,  therefore,  but  a 
single  vote  standing  between  them  and  success — the  Repub- 
licans were  not  without  hope  that  by  complicating  the  situa- 
tion they  might  succeed  in  renewing  Mr.  Frelinghuysen's  term 
at  Washington.  Mr.  Frelinghuysen  had  not  yet  made  his 
famous  speech  in  the  Senate  concerning  the  method  of  conduct- 
ing the  electoral  count,  nor  had  he  as  a  member  of  the  Electoral 
Commission  assisted  by  his  vote  to  carry  out  the  Hayes  pro- 
gramme; and  the  hope  that  the  respectful  consideration  of  his 
name  as  a  senatorial  possibility  again  might  influence  him  to 
liberality  in  dealing  with  the  electoral  complications  persuaded 
even  some  Democrats  to  lend  a  favorable  ear  to  his  candidacy. 
Tiiden's  influence  might  take  from  the  Democratic  majority  the 
one  vote  needed  to  send  him  back  to  the  Senate.  Mr.  Freling- 
huysen might  in  return  be  induced  to  aid  Mr.  Tilden  in  bring- 
ing about  a  favorable  conclusion  of  the  electoral  controversy. 

Then  there  were  other  local  influences  at  work  in  his  behalf 
quite  as  effectively.  One  of  the  forty-one  Democrats  was  a 
German  brewer  from  Newark,  named  Gottfried  Krueger.  He 
had  recently  established  his  malt-houses  and  had  involved  him- 
self in  expenditures  he  found  it  hard  to  bear.  The  money  paid 
by  him  into  the  hands  of  the  United  States  Revenue  Collector 
for  beer  stamps  during  the  course  of  a  year  was  an  enormous 
item  for  him.  Ex-Congressman  George  A.  Halsey  was  the 
recognized  medium  through  whom  the  presidential  favors  in 
New  Jersey  were  distributed.  His  word,  of  course,  went  a  long 
distance  with  the  federal  ofiBcial,  and  it  was  feared  that  he  might 
convince  Krueger  that  he  could  make  things  easier  for  him  ai- 

9 


130  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


the  revenue  office  if  he  would  but  consent  to  assist  the  Repub- 
licans on  the  joint  ballot.  The  Democrats  felt  constrained 
to  keep  Krueger  under  espionage  from  the  very  moment  he 
reached  Trenton,  and  all  their  movements  indicated  that  they 
were  afraid  that  he  was  preparing  to  ally  himself  with  the  Re- 
publicans and  assist  in  defeating  the  election  of  a  Democratic 
Senator. 

Factional  bitterness  in  the  Democratic  camp  increased  the 
chance  of  these  defections.  Mr.  McPherson  proved  to  be  an 
aggressive  candidate  for  the  favor  of  the  Democratic  joint  caucus. 
The  moment  he  made  his  ambition  known  the  State  House 
autocrats  summoned  all  the  powers  of  the  State  in  opposition  to 
him.  They  believed  in  opposing  him  with  Ashbel  Green  that 
the  closeness  of  their  relations  would  bring  Samuel  J.  Tilden 
actively  to  Judge  Green's  support.  Governor  Bedle  was  accused 
of  helping  them  by  placing  the  State  patronage  at  the  disposal 
of  those  Senators  and  Assemblymen  who  would  agree  to  vote 
against  McPherson  for  Green,  and  a  party  of  Hudson  men 
favorable  to  McPherson's  candidacy  even  waited  upon  him  and 
protested  that  he  had  no  right  to  do  it. 

Feverish  excitement  marked  the  opening  of  the  Legislature 
because  of  the  complications  on  both  sides.  McPherson  was 
determined  at  whatever  cost  to  humble  the  State  House  autoc- 
racy. The  State  House  autocracy  felt  that  it  was  making  a  fight 
for  life  or  death ;  and  with  the  majority  of  but  one  against  them, 
the  Republicans  hoped  to  bring  a  man  of  their  own  choice 
through  the  scrimmage.  All  sides  played  carefully  for  posi- 
tion, and  no  movement  was  taken  rashly  or  precipitately.  The 
eleven  Democrats  in  the  Senate  found  it  easy  to  organize 
promptly,  with  Leon  Abbett  as  President,  and  Charles  Jamison, 
of  Somerset,  as  Secretary.  But  the  two  sides  fought  for  the 
vantage  in  the  evenly-divided  Assembly.  The  members  of  that 
chamber  should  have  organized  at  the  same  hour  at  which  Mr. 
Abbett  was  made  President  of  the  Senate,  but  when  John  Y. 
Foster,  by  virtue  of  his  position  as  Clerk  of  the  preceding 
Assembly,  called  the  roll,  only  the  thirty  Republicans  answered  ; 
the  thirty  Democrats  had  evidently  stayed  away  by  pre-arrange- 


MODERN   BA.TTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


131 


ment.  Nothing  was  possible  except  a  motion  to  adjourn  till  the 
next  day,  and  John  W.  Griggs,  then  a  rising  young  Paterson 
lawyer,  made  it.  On  the  following  day  every  seat  was  filled, 
and  an  attempt  was  made  to  elect  a  Speaker.  The  Democrats 
nominated  Rudolph  F.  Rabe,  a  sleek  and  plausible  Assembly- 
man from  Hudson ;  the  Republicans  presented  the  name  of 
Alden  C.  Scovel,  of 
Camden.  The  roll- 
call  on  three  or  four 
ballots  showed  thirty 
votes  for  each  and  con- 
sequectly  no  election. 
The  deadlock  con- 
tinued for  a  day  or 
two  later.  It  was 
broken  before  the  end 
of  the  week  by  a  divi- 
sion of  the  officers  be- 
tween the  two  parties. 
One  morning,  just 
after  Mr.  Foster  had 
completed  the  roll-call, 
Assemblyman  Howell, 
of  Essex,  arose  in  his 
seat  and  surprised  his 
fellow-Republicans 

with  a  resolution  designating  all  the  officers  of  the  House  from 
Speaker  down  to  Doorkeeper.  It  gave  the  Speakership  to  Rabe 
and  the  Clerkship  to  Foster.  Having  thus  divided  the  chief 
places  between  the  two  parties,  the  resolution  showed  a  similar 
division  of  the  minor  positions.  Assemblyman  Griggs  entered 
a  sharp  protest  against  that  method  of  election  and  raised  the 
point  of  order  that  each  officer  should  be  separately  chosen. 
Mr.  Foster  ruled  the  point  not  well  taken  and  put  the  resolution 
before  the  chamber.  Howell  and  Van  Rensselaer,  of  Essex; 
Vail,  of  Union,  and  Rue,  of  Mercer,  Republicans,  joined  with 


Rudolph  F.  Rabe. 


132  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


the  thirty  Democrats  and  put  it  through,  and  the  Assembly  was 
ready  to  proceed  with  business. 

The  decks  were  thus  cleared  for  the  senatorial  battle,  with 
the  Democrats  in  the  advantage.  Both  Houses  were  controlled 
by  men  of  their  party,  and  preparations  were  made  for  the 
caucuses.  The  Republican  forty  met  in  one  of  the  rooms  of 
the  Trenton  House,  and  with  one  voice  agreed  to  support  Fre- 
linghuysen  for  re-election.  The  Democratic  forty-one  were  to 
have  met  the  same  evening  in  the  Assembly  Chamber  to  select 
their  candidate,  but  Mr.  McPherson  hadn't  his  fences  all  up  yet, 
and  President  Abbett  gave  him  time  to  do  the  needed  work  by 
peremptorily  adjourning  the  Senate,  and  ending  the  Legislative 
week  before  the  State  House  coterie  could  call  a  caucus.  When 
the  members  re- assembled  for  the  week's  session  on  the  following 
Monday  McPherson  had  arranged  everything  to  his  satisfaction, 
and  the  call  for  the  nominating  conference  went  out.  The  war 
between  the  Hudson  candidate  and  the  State  House  autocrats 
waged  fast  and  furious  behind  locked  doors,  and  the  partisans 
of  the  two  sides  narrowly  escaped  blows  while  the  discussion 
was  on.  When  the  ballot  was  taken,  however,  it  was  seen  that 
Mr.  McPherson  had  a  decided  majority,  and  he  was  declared  to 
be  the  nominee  of  the  Democratic  party  against  Mr.  Freling- 
huysen. 

His  victory  in  caucus  was,  however,  only  the  first  step 
towards  securing  the  distinction.  The  joint  meeting  at  which 
the  action  of  the  caucus  was  to  be  ratified  was  yet  two  days 
away,  and  the  most  difficult  part  of  his  canvass  lay  in  keeping 
his  men  together  until  the  hour  for  his  election  arrived.  The 
nomination  had  no  sooner  been  made  than  the  Republicans  began 
to  dicker  with  the  weaker  brethren  in  the  Democratic  camp. 
Their  hold,  through  Mr.  Halsey,  on  Krueger  was  evidently  a 
strong  one.  The  Democratic  caucus  kept  him  carefully  under 
eye,  and  from  the  time  the  nomination  was  made  to  the  time 
when  the  joint  meeting  was  held  every  movement  of  his  was 
reported  to  the  caucus — whom  he  met  and  where  he  went,  what 
he  ate  and  where  he  slept — the  caucus  knew  it  all.  Other 
members  were  put  under  the  same  kind  of  espionage.   Alexander 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF  TRENTON.  133 


W.  Harris,  a  Southern  adventurer,  who  had  managed  to  get 
into  one  of  the  Hudson  seats ;  Elias  J.  Mackay,  representing 
one  of  the  Wairen  districts,  and  Thomas  J.  Hannon,  a  butter 
dealer  in  Jersey,  City,  were  all  unconsciously  placed  under  the 
eye  of  detectives. 

Mr.  Frelinghuysen  had  meanwhile  disappointed  the  Demo- 
cratic hope  that  he  might  pursue  a  conservative  course  in  the 
electoral  controversy ;  and  by  a  speech  in  the  Senate  upholding 
the  proposed  Republican  method  of  count  he  had  aroused  such 
sharp  criticism  among  the  Democrats  that  his  Republican 
backers  felt  that  it  would  be  worse  than  useless  to  attempt  to 
break  the  Democratic  caucus  in  his  interest.  There  were  rumors 
that  if  the  Republicans  would  drop  Frelinghuysen,  William 
Walter  Phelps,  a  brilliant  Bergen  county  Congressman,  might 
be  able  to  persuade  Harris  and  Mackay  to  j  )in  them  in  electing 
him.  The  Republican  managers  exploited  that  rumor  and  dis- 
covered that  there  was  not  sufficient  foundation  for  it  to  justify 
them  in  making  it  the  basis  of  action. 

The  day  before  joint  meeting,  however,  ex-Secretary  George 
M.  Robeson  appeared  in  Trenton  and  announced  with  a  great 
flourish  of  trumpets  that  if  he  were  taken  up  by  the  Republicans 
he  could  get  the  needed  Democratic  vote.  Mr.  Robeson  had 
been  Attorney-General  of  the  State,  and  won  a  national  notoriety 
as  General  Grant's  Naval  Secretary.  The  two  years  that  had 
passed  since  he  had  stepped  down  from  his  high  position  in 
Washington  had  been  spent  in  Camden  in  legal  practice.  Just 
before  he  obtruded  himself  into  this  senatorial  controversy  he 
had  escaped  contemnation  at  the  hands  of  the  Democratic 
House  of  Representatives  by  the  vote  in  committee  of  A.  A. 
Hardenbergh,  an  amiable  Democrat  who  represented  the  Hudson 
county  district  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  moment 
Mr.  Robeson  reached  Trenton,  it  became  noised  around  that 
$60,000  were  at  the  disposal  of  any  Democrat  who  would  join 
the  Republicans  in  making  a  Senator  of  him.  Before  nightfall 
it  was  positively  asserted  that  a  Democrat  had  been  secured,  and 
-the  Republicans  assured  themselves  that  the  deal  was  so  likely 


134         MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


to  be  carried  out  that  they  re- assembled  in  caucus,  and,  dropping^ 
Frelinghuysen,  formally  made  Robeson  their  candidate. 

Trenton  has  seldom  seen  a  night  of  such  excitement.  Mr. 
McPherson's  managers  were  convinced  that  the  Republican 
caucus  would  not  have  changed  from  Frelinghuysen  to  Robeson 
unless  the  change  was  to  be  consummated  in  joint  meeting  at 
noon  on  the  following  day,  and  every  man  in  their  caucus  was 
put  under  the  most  careful  scrutiny.  By  midnight  it  had  been 
currently  reported  that  Hannon  was  the  weak  brother. 

Hannon  stood  in  the  Assembly  as  the  representative  of  the 
famous  Democratic  Horseshoe  District.  When  he  sought  the 
nomination  he  had  been  opposed  by  Terrence  J.  McDonald. 
The  vote  between  them  stood  eleven  each  in  convention,  and  an 
appeal  to  the  County  Committee  was  needed  to  break  the  dead- 
lock. The  committee  made  Hannon  the  nominee,  but  "  Terry," 
as  McDonald  was  familiarly  known,  announced  himself  as  the 
regular  candidate,  and  because  he  was  better  known  than  Hannon, 
Hannon  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  independent  nominee. 
Hannon  was  elected,  and  after  he  had  reached  Trenton  he  seems, 
for  purposes  of  his  own,  to  have  encouraged  the  idea  that  he  was 
not  to  be  numbered  with  the  regular  Democrats.  When  he  thus 
held  himself  up  as  not  of  the  fold,  it  was  a  temptation  to  the 
Republican  plotters  to  deal  with  him,  and  it  was  not  long  before 
they  were  in  communication  with  him.  A  few  weeks  after  elec- 
tion he  was  called  upon  by  Frank  Champney,  the  son  of  the 
Republican  Chief  of  Police  of  Jersey  City,  who  reminded  him 
that  he  held  the  decisive  vote  between  the  two  parties  in  the 
senatorial  contest  and  pictured  to  him  the  golden  opportunities 
that  lay  before  him.  The  result  was  that  Hannon  was  persuaded 
to  go  to  the  Cosmopolitan  Hotel  on  the  following  Sunday  to 
meet  an  unnamed  tempter.  There  he  met  a  man  named  Gregory, 
who  had  held  some  official  position  under  Robeson  and  after- 
wards made  an  unsuccessful  Assembly  contest  in  one  of  the 
Jersey  City  districts,  and  this  man  introduced  him  to  a  fine- 
looking  fellow,  whose  name  has  not  been  divulged.  The 
stranger  talked  to  him  about  Robeson  and  $10,000,  and  a  day 
or  two  later  he  weut  sleighiiding  with  this  individual,  and  waa^ 


I 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  135 

gratified  to  hear  that  the  price  had  been  advanced  to  $25,000. 
There  had  been  two  or  three  conferences,  when  Hannon,  becom- 
ing frightened,  sought  Senator  Abbett,  at  Martin  M.  Drohan's 
house  in  Jersey  City,  and  laid  the  matter  before  him.  Both  Mr. 
Abbett  and  Mr.  Drohan  advised  Hannon  to  continue  the 
negotiations  to  the  end. 

Thus  things  stood  on  the  morning  of  joint  meeting.  Twelve 
o'clock  was  the  hour  for  the  assembling  of  the  two  Houses  in 
joint  convention.  The  Democrats  were  under  high  tension,  and 
alarm  was  on  every  face  when  it  was  seen  that  some  of  the 
members  were  out  of  their  seats.  The  big  brewer  from  Newark, 
whose  antics  had  excited  so  much  apprehension,  was  among  his 
Essex  colleagues,  and  Harris'  long,  red  beard  was  descried 
among  the  Hudson  members.  Even  Hannon  was  in  his  place, 
but  little  Mackay,  of  Warren,  was  absent.  Mr.  Abbett,  who 
by  virtue  of  his  Senate  Presidency  presided  over  the  two 
Houses,  ordered  the  doors  locked,  and  with  a  voice  of  iron  com- 
manded the  Sergeant-at-Arms  to  bring  Mr.  Mackay  in.  The 
hunt  for  him  was  not  long.  He  was  found  loitering  around  a 
statue  of  General  Phil  Kearny,  which  now  ornaments  one  end 
of  Military  Park  in  Newark  but  stood  then  neglected  and  dust- 
covered  in  one  of  the  corridors  of  the  State  House,  and  marched 
to  his  seat  in  the  chamber. 

All  the  members  being  now  in  their  places,  the  motion  that  the 
joint  meeting  proceed  to  the  election  of  United  States  Senator 
was  made  by  Speaker  Rabe.  Instantly  a  dozen  members  flocked 
to  the  floor  to  Hannon's  seat,  and  politicians,  leaders  and  workers 
of  both  parties,  chased  to  his  side  from  the  lobbies.  No  man 
was  ever  so  thoroughly  under  guard.  The  Democrats  lowered 
at  him  suspiciously,  and  he  knew  from  their  glare  that  serious 
violence  would  pay  for  his  desertion  of  his  party.  The  Repub- 
licans were  there  to  keep  him  in  countenance  while  he  cast  his 
expected  vote  for  them!  "  Duke "  Tilden,  a  fat  and  good- 
natured  Republican  Assemblyman  who  sat  next  to  him,  leaned 
over  to  whisper  to  him. 

"I  hear,"  he  said,  "that  a  Democratic  vote  has  been  got  for 
Robeson,  and  that  it  is  going  to  be  cast  by  the  man  who  sits  next 
to  me." 


136  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 

"  Wait  till  you  see,"  Hannon  responded  with  a  lip  trembling 
with  excitement. 

Meanwhile,  the  two  caucus  candidates  had  been  put  before 
the  body — Robeson  for  the  Republicans,  McPherson  for  the 
Democrats — and  every  man  tallied  the  announcements  as  the 
roll-call  proceeded,  with  nervous  fingers.  A  pin  could  have  been 
heard  to  fall  when  Hannon's  name  was  called.  As  he  responded 
with  McPherson's  name  a  great  cheer  rent  the  air  and  his  Demo- 
cratic guard  flocked  to  the  seat  of  Harris,  whose  name  was  next 
on  the  roll.  He,  too,  said  "  McPherson,"  and  the  excited  throng 
dashed  over  the  chamber  and  clustered  around  Krueger's  seat 
menacingly  till  he  had  said  "  McPherson,"  and  then  to  Mackay's 
bench  till  he  had  said  "  McPherson."  All  the  doubtful  votes 
had  now  been  tallied  up,  and  the  Democrats  burst  into  an 
applause  that  was  deafening.  The  cast-up  of  the  total  showed 
that  Mr.  McPherson's  army  had  been  held  firmly  to  his  stand- 
ard and  that  the  scheme  of  Robeson's  friends  had  been  defeated. 

The  vote,  as  it  was  first  taken,  showed  forty- one  Democrats 
for  McPherson  and  forty  Republicans  for  Robeson.  Before  it 
had  been  announced,  however,  the  disappointed  Republicans 
broke  ranks  and  fled  from  their  candidate.  Senators  Hobart 
and  Kirk  and  Assemblymen  Brigham,  Griggs,  Cavileer,  Voor- 
hees,  Cory,  Payne,  Van  Duyne  and  Hill  sprang  to  Freling- 
huysen ;  Senators  Magie  and  Schultze  and  Assemblymen  Pier- 
eon,  Vail,  Traphagen,  Tilden,  Van  Rensselaer,  Leonard,  Howell, 
Wightman,  Burroughs,  Taylor,  Van  Hise,  Drake,  Nichols, 
Schultze,  Pancoast  and  Cooper  changed  to  Cortlandt  Parker, 
and  Assemblyman  Cunningham  to  Phelps.  On  the  announce- 
ment, eighteen  were  for  Parker,  ten  for  Frelinghuysen,  one  for 
Phelps,  and  Robeson,  the  slated  candidate  of  the  caucus,  had 
Tbut  eleven  of  his  braves  left. 

The  subsequent  revelations  of  the  session  showed  that  the 
fears  of  Krueger's  party  loyalty  were  not  wholly  without  justi- 
fication. The  watchful  scrutiny  that  had  been  deemed  prudent 
to  keep  him  true  during  the  senatorial  struggle  had  to  be  re- 
newed when  the  canvass  for  the  State  Comptrollership  began  to 
assume  shape  a  week  afterwards.     The  term  of  Albert  L  Run- 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  137 

yon,  who  had  filled  that  important  State  oflSce  since  1871,  was 
about  to  expire,  and  upon  the  joint  meeting  devolved  the  choice 
of  his  successor.  Just  as  the  hope  of  Hannon's  desertion  of  his 
party  had  tempted  the  Republican  caucus  to  give  the  senatorial 
nomination  to  Robeson,  so  the  promise  of  Krueger's  defection 
now  beguiled  them  into  taking  Samuel  Morrow,  a  bright-faced 
young  Newark  lawyer,  as  their  candidate  for  State  Comptroller. 
The  Democratic  caucus  decided  to  confer  the  office  upon  General 
Robert  F.  Stockton,  a  son  of  famous  old  Commodore  Stockton 
and  a  brother  of  John  P.  Stockton,  whose  achievements  in  peace 
and  war  had  won  for  them  the  admiration  of  the  nation. 

But  Mr.  Morrow  had  acted  as  counsel  for  Mr.  Krueger,  and  the 
stolid-faced  brewer- Assemblyman  made  no  secret  of  his  devotion 
to  his  cause,  without  regard  to  the  action  of  his  party's  caucus. 
His  failure  to  put  in  an  appearance  at  the  first  of  the  joint  meet- 
ings at  which  the  choice  between  the  two  candidates  was  to  be 
made  left  the  Democrats  without  the  forty- one  votes  needed  to 
elect  General  Stockton,  and  the  belief  that  it  was  part  of  a 
scheme  to  aid  Morrow's  election  led  Senator  Abbett,  as  chair- 
man, to  arbitrarily  declare  the  joint  meeting  adjourned.  The 
next  day  Krueger  was  in  his  seat,  ready,  as  everybody  believed, 
to  vote  for  Morrow,  but  the  solidity  of  the  Republican  vote  was 
spoiled  that  time  by  the  absence  of  Senator  Sewell,  of  Camden. 
The  Republican  prints  explained  for  him  that  he  had  stayed 
away  to  attend  the  annual  meeting  of  the  directors  of  a  railroad 
of  which  he  was  the  Superintendent  at  the  time.  Assurances 
were  given  that  he  had  not  known  of  Morrow's  nomination  till 
summoned  by  a  dispatch  from  Trenton  to  vote  for  him,  and  that 
the  moment  the  dispatch  reached  him  he  had  sprung  to  a  special 
locomotive  and  driven  like  mad  for  the  State  House.  He 
arrived  in  Trenton  only  to  learn  that  the  Democrats,  taking 
advantage  of  his  absence,  had  forced  an  ineffectual  ballot  and 
then  adjourned  the  meeting.  Senator  Hill,  of  Morris,  had  put 
Morrow's  name  formally  before  the  joint  meeting.  Stockton's 
name  had  been  presented  by  Assemblyman  Bergen,  of  Somerset. 
Stockton  had  received  only  thirty-six  votes.     Krueger  and  the 


138  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TEENTON. 

thirty-nine  Republicans  present  had  voted  for  Morrow.  Gen- 
eral Sewell's  vote  would  have  elected  him. 

It  was  a  week  before  the  next  joint  meeting  was  held.  Mean- 
while, Major  Anderson,  who  was  Comptroller's  Runyon's  chief 
deputy,  had,  though  a  Republican,  reached  an  understanding 
with  General  Stockton  for  the  retention  of  his  oflBce  and  had 
used  his  personal  influence  to  induce  his  party  friends  in  the 
two  Houses  to  aid  General  Stockton.  When  the  hour  for  the 
fateful  roll-call  arrived,  the  eighty- one  Senators  and  Assembly- 
men were  all  in  their  seats.  Krueger  played  away  from  Mor- 
row to  watch  the  effect,  and,  with  his  Essex  colleague,  Gomer, 
and  his  Bergen  colleague,  Winant,  cast  a  vote  for  William  P. 
McMichael.  The  Republicans  stood  solidly  to  their  caucus 
nominee  on  the  first  roll-call.  But  there  were  many  who  could 
not  reconcile  themselves  to  the  methods  by  which  he  hoped  to 
win ;  and  the  fear  that  Krueger  might,  on  the  second  ballot, 
join  them  and  elect  Morrow  led  a  host  of  them  to  change  their 
votes  before  the  result  was  announced.  Senator  Hobart  was  the 
first  to  desert  the  Morrow  standard.  He  surprised  gallery  and 
floor  by  voting  plumply  for  General  Stockton.  Senators  Sewell, 
Kirk,  Matthews,  Willetts,  Hill,  Learning,  Magie,  Schultze  and 
Plummer,  and  Assemblymen  Scovel,  Vail,  Van  Hise,  Van 
Rensselaer,  Voorhees,  Griggs,  Cunningham,  Payne,  Core,  Wight- 
man,  Ashley  and  Van  Duyne  followed  suit  in  rapid  succession. 
Thus  General  Stockton  was  given  an  overwhelming  majority, 
and  Chairman  Abbett  lost  no  time  in  declaring  him  duly  elected. 

When  he  entered  upon  the  discharge  of  his  new  functions 
General  Stockton  at  once  appointed  Major  Anderson  to  the  chief 
place  in  the  department.  But  the  desertion  of  their  caucus 
nominee  by  the  most  influential  of  the  Republican  members  was 
as  much  designed  to  stamp  Mr.  Krueger's  threatened  abandon- 
ment of  his  party  with  the  seal  of  their  disapproval. 

The  rest  of  the  history  of  events  under  Governor  Bedle's  ad- 
ministration is  easily  recounted.  The  passage  of  the  District 
Court  act  worked  one  of  the  notable  reforms  accomplished. 
The  courts  established  by  this  act  were  to  supersede  in  the  cities 
what  were  technically  described  as  the  Courts  for  the  Trial  of 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  139 

Small  Causes,  but  popularly  known  as  the  Justices'  Courts. 
The  determination  of  suits  involving  small  sums  of  money  had 
long  been  committed  to  the  Justices  of  the  Peace.  The  judicial 
instinct  was  too  often  lost  in  the  greed  of  the  incumbents,  and 
their  courts  degenerated  into  mere  collection  agencies,  the  dig- 
nitary who  presided  over  them  acting  as  a  collector  with  a  com- 
mission, depending  upon  his  success  in  enforcing  payment,  in 
prospect,  and  as  counsel  for  the  plaintiff,  judge  and  jury  all 
rolled  into  one.  No  defense  availed  against  any  claim  left  with 
him  for  collection ;  the  judgment  was  always  for  the  court's 
clients,  and  then  all  the  terrors  of  the  law  were  invoked  to 
enforce  its  payment.  Only  the  more  ignorant  men  sought  elec- 
tion to  the  office,  and  by  degrees  they  grew  to  be  so  oppressive 
and  corrupt  that  their  courts  came  to  be  recognized  as  an  organ- 
ized and  licensed  system  of  extortion,  and  the  necessity  for  their 
abolition  became  apparent.  But  no  steps  were  taken  towards 
that  end  till  many  of  the  conscienceless  fellows  who  officiated 
in  them  had  been  put  under  indictment  by  the  grand  juries  and 
forced  to  surrender  their  offices  as  the  price  of  their  freedom. 
Two  or  three  of  them  bad  returned  their  commissions  to  Gov- 
ernor Bedle  while  he  was  on  the  bench.  When  public  attention 
had  thus  been  directed  to  their  vicious  abuse  of  function,  an  act 
taking  from  those  in  the  cities  all  of  their  civil  prerogatives, 
and  transferring  them  to  District  Courts,  conducted  by  ap- 
pointees of  the  Governor,  easily  won  the  favor  of  the  Legisla- 
ture and  Governor  Bedle's  approval.  Like  courts  would  have 
been  established  throughout  the  State  but  for  the. objection  of 
the  rural  members  that  the  constituencies  they  represented  could 
not  bear  the  expense  attending  them;  and  in  the  cities  they 
would  have  been  denuded  of  their  criminal  functions  as  they 
were  of  their  civil,  but  that  the  State  Constitution,  in  providing 
for  the  election  of  Justices  of  the  Peace,  seemed  to  give  them 
some  kind  of  constitutional  countenance. 

When  he  came  to  the  selection  of  new  functionaries,  Governor 
Bedle  created  no  end  of  commotion  among  the  more  partisan  of 
Democrats  by  nominating  John  A.  Blair,  a  conspicuous  Repub- 
lican lawyer,  to  one  of  the  judgeships  in  Jersey  City,  and  incurred 


Jostpb  D.  Bedle. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  141 

a  more  than  fair  degree  of  censure  for  the  selection  of  his  father- 
in-law,  Bennington  F.  Randolph,  for  the  other.  The  strife 
between  the  State  House  managers  and  the  anti- State  House 
managers  had  not  yet  expended  itself,  and  Senator  Abbett,  as 
the  leader  of  the  anti's,  made  vigorous  protest  against  the  con- 
firmation of  the  nominees.  As  Mr.  Abbett  represented  the  county 
in  which  these  gentlemen  were  to  serve,  his  refusal  to  consent  to 
confirmation  was  final,  and  Governor  Bedle  had  to  make  the 
appointments  ad  interim,  after  he  had  sent  the  Senators  to  their 
homes  for  the  year.    The  next  Senate  confirmed  them,  however. 

A  second  excitement  that  attended  his  administration  grew 
out  of  the  great  railway  strike  that,  beginning  on  the  Baltimore 
and  Ohio  lines  in  the  West,  spread  sympathetically  all  over  the 
country.  The  lawless  rabble  that  exists  in  every  community 
made  the  agitation  attending  the  strike  the  cover  for  rapine  and 
robbery;  and  great  riots,  which  sacrificed  both  property  and 
life,  occurred  in  Chicago,  Pittsburg  and  Philadelphia.  The 
Jersey  Central,  more  or  less  closely  linked  with  the  system  on 
which  the  strike  had  originated,  and  the  Morris  and  Essex, 
whose  men  had  long  complained  of  their  treatment  by  their 
superiors,  became  involved,  and  an  attempt  was  made,  also,  to 
call  out  the  men  on  the  Pennsylvania  railroad. 

At  that  time  George  W.  Barker,  one  of  the  most  amiable 
railroad  men  in  the  country,  was  Superintendent  of  the  lines 
running  out  from  Jersey  City  to  Pittsburg.  He  was  not  with- 
out fear  that  his  men  would  be  drawn  into  the  controversy,  and 
he  felt  that  the  time  had  come  when  a  delegation  of  train- hands 
waited  upon  him  one  morning  to  notify  him  that  they  would  be 
forced  to  abandon  their  engines  at  noon.  He  met  them  with 
smiling  good  humor,  and  with  his  most  gracious  air  begged 
them  to  lay  their  grievances  before  him,  that  he  might  present 
them  to  his  superiors  and  have  them  adjusted  satisfactorily. 
They  were  obliged  to  confess  that  they  had  none,  but  the 
Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Engineers  had  ordered  them  to  a 
sympathetic  strike  and  there  was  no  disobeying  the  command. 
Mr.  Barker  pointed  out  to  them  that  the  striking  railroad  men 
throughout  the  country  were  being  held  responsible  for  the  tur- 


142  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

bulence  and  destruction  wrought  by  mobs  with  which  no  honest 
laborer  could  have  any  sympathy,  and  asking  them  if  they  were 
prepared  to  bear  a  like  odium.  He  argued  the  point  with  them 
with  such  adroitness  and  amiability  that  two  hours  later  the 
same  delegation  waited  upon  him  to  let  him  know  that  they  had 
reconsidered  their  action,  and  determined  to  stay  at  their  throt- 
tles as  long  as  they  were  protected  from  outside  violence. 

The  consequence  of  these  civilities  was  that  there  was,  during 
all  the  strike,  but  a  single  occasion  when  anything  approaching 
an  interruption  of  traffic  on  the  road  occurred.  The  United 
States  government  had  ordered  a  battery  of  artillery  moved 
from  Fort  Hamilton  to  the  West,  and  they  were  to  go  by  the 
Pennsylvania  roads.  McMichael,  the  engineer  of  the  locomo- 
tive that  was  to  haul  the  train  on  which  they  were  to  be  trans- 
ported, was  threatened  with  death  by  a  great  throng  of  ugly- 
looking  fellows  who  crowded  into  the  depot,  if  he  dared  to  open 
the  throttle  as  long  as  that  battery  was  behind  him,  and  he 
abandoned  his  locomotive.  Engineer  David  Kerr,  a  man  of 
known  courage,  was  asked  by  the  company  to  take  his  place. 
He  sprang  unhesitatingly  to  the  cab  and  bravely  drove  the  loco- 
motive out  of  the  shed  through  a  shower  of  stones  and  bricks 
hurled  at  him  by  the  angry  and  chagrined  crowd. 

It  may  be  assumed  that  if  this  greatest  of  the  railroads  that 
cross  her  bosom  had  been  opened  to  the  turbulent  mobs 
that  besieged  the  Pennsylvania  boundaries  of  the  State, 
the  invasion  of  New  Jersey  would  have  been  completed ;  and 
Superintendent  Barker's  admirable  handling  of  his  subordinates 
strengthened  the  arm  of  the  State  more  than  was  probably  real- 
ized at  the  time. 

The  participation  of  the  Jersey  Central  and  the  Morris  and 
Essex  hands  in  the  strike  still  left  two  of  the  great  highways 
of  travel  open  to  the  besiegers,  and  it  became  incumbent  on  the 
Governor  to  guard  the  points  where  those  roads  entered  the  State. 
This  he  did  with  the  aid  of  the  citizen  soldiery.  Making  Police 
Headquarters  in  Jersey  City  his  military  headquarters,  he  called 
several  regiments  of  the  National  Guard  to  arms.  The  import- 
ant points  to  protect  were  in  the  southern  end,  where  the  brigade 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  143 


of  which  General  Sewell  was  the  commander  was  stationed.  He 
moved  his  forces  from  their  several  armories  to  the  threatened 
scene  of  conflict  so  quietly  and  so  expeditiously  that  the  hills 
around  Phillipsburg  had  been  turned  into  a  camp  even  before 
the  masses  knew  that  the  men  had  been  ordered  out;  and  he 
deployed  his  little  band  of  soldiers  so  skillfully  that,  although 
transportation  was  interrupted  for  a  season,  the  rabble  was  kept 
at  bay.  His  men  guarded  the  trains  over  the  two  obstructed 
lines,  protected  the  new  crews  the  companies  put  in  charge  of 
them,  and  finally  restored  the  broken  communication  with  New 
York.  Governor  Bedle  and  General  Sewell  earned  no  end  of  com- 
mendation from  all  parts  of  the  country  for  the  skill  and  courage 
with  which  they  had  saved  New  Jersey  from  the  destruction 
that  had  marked  the  progress  of  the  strike  in  the  surrounding 
States. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

Which,  More  or  Less  Adequately,  Describes  the  Spectacular 

Convention  at  Which  Leon  Abbett  was  Defeated  in 

His  Gubernatorial  Aspirations,  and  General 

McClellan  was  Made  the  Democratic 

Nominee  in  His  Stead. 


^  ^li^HE  selection  of  his  successor  was  the  crowning  agitation 
^'^v^  of  Governor  Bedle's  administration.  The  State  House 
^".?^^  autocracy  with  which  Governor  Bedle  had  always  been 
identified  measured  lances  with  its  factional  opponents 
of  the  Abbett- McPherson  wing  for  the  last  time,  and  won  only 
by  a  trick. 

It  will  be  recalled  that  in  its  first  encounter  with  the  oppo- 
sition it  had  suffered  defeat  in  the  election  of  John  R.  Mc- 
Pherson to  the  United  Skates  Senate  over  Judge  Ashbel  Green. 
In  this  renewal  of  the  contest,  McPherson's  skillful  ally, 
Abbett,  threw  down  the  glove  to  them  with  his  demand  for  the 
nomination  for  the  Governorship. 

It  has  already  been  said  that  all  through  his  legislative  career 
Mr.  Abbett's  course  had  been  one  of  unfaltering  opposition  to 
the  domination  of  the  State  House  magnates.  He  had  haled 
them  to  the  bar  of  public  opinion  as  purse-proud  aristocrats  who 
had  no  sympathy  with  the  masses ;  and,  springing  always  to  the 
defense  of  the  common  people,  he  had  posed  as  the  Great  Com- 
moner of  the  State.  The  State  House  people  were  indeed  a  trifle 
overstrained  and  high-toned,  and  Abbett  was  specially  obnoxious 
to  them  from  the  two  points  of  view  that  he  had  made  himself 
their  political  enemy,  and  that  he  was  "  not  of  their  set."  It 
had  been  suspected,  when  he  lent  Mr.  McPherson  his  eflPective 
assistance,  in  holding  the  narrow  Democratic  majority  in  the 
caucus  of  the  winter  together,  that  an  offensive  and  defensive 
(144) 


MODERN  BATTI.E3  OF  TRENTON.         145 


alliance  had  been  formed  between  them,  and  that  Mr.  Abbett'd 
reward  for  his  fidelity  to  Mr.  McPhereon's  interests  was  to  be 
Mr.  McPherson's  assistance  in  reaching  the  Governorship.  The 
State  House  managers  paid  but  little  heed  at  the  start  to  the 
rumor  of  his  coming  candidacy,  and  there  is  a  story  that  the 
Senator  would  not  indeed  have  been  over-anxious  for  the  nomi- 
nation at  that  time  but  for  his  desire  to  please  his  wife.  Mrs. 
Abbett  longed  to  be  the  chief  lady  in  the  State.  A  handsome 
and  stately  blonde,  with  a  charming  personality,  she  had  the 
graces  and  accomplishments  that  would  have  adorned  such  a 
station,  and  she  lent  herself  to  a  zealous  advocacy  of  her  hus- 
band's promotion.  A  pretty  tradition  tells  of  the  bewitching 
importunity  with  which  she  urged  the  leaders  whom  she  met  at 
the  resorts  during  the  summer  to  "  help  me  make  Leon  Gov- 
ernor." Captivated,  some — too  gallant  to  refuse,  others — many 
of  them  forgot  their  factional  relations,  and  promised ;  and  so 
the  State  House  managers  were  surprised,  when  the  canvass 
actually  began,  to  see  that  some  of  their  main  supporters  had 
been  tempted  from  them.  By  the  middle  of  September  they 
had  come  to  realize  that  the  Abbett-McPherson  combination 
was  as  likely  to  prove  as  bothersome  in  the  gubernatorial  arena 
as  it  had  been  in  the  senatorial. 

Their  apprehensions  drove  them  into  conference,  and  they  met 
in  New  York  one  night  several  weeks  before  the  convention 
was  to  assemble.  Senator  Randolph,  Governor  Bedle,  Attorney- 
General  Vanatta,  Clerk  in  Chancery  Little,  Secretary  of  State 
Kelsey  and  one  or  two  others  whose  names  were  never  given 
out,  gathered  to  consider  the  situation  and  determine  upon  a 
candidate  to  confront  the  magnetic  man  from  Hudson  with. 

But  little  time  was  given  to  the  consideration  of  the  first 
point.  The  plain  situation,  as  they  saw  it,  was  that  Abbett  was 
a  dangerous  possibility  and  that  their  continued  predominance 
in  party  councils  necessitated  his  defeat.  The  second  point  was 
not  so  easy  of  solution.  There  was  only  one  available  man 
within  sight  and  they  were  not  over-enamoured  of  him.  They 
thought  that  perhaps  the  historic  name  of  his  family  might  rally 
the  Democratic  masses  to  the  support  of  ex- United  States  Senator 

10 


146  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

John  P.  Stockton,  but  he  was  not  quite  agreeable  to  them  as  a 
candidate.  Had  they  not  crowded  him  out  of  the  United  States 
Senate  with  Randolph  ?  And  they  felt  it  safe  to  assume  that  in 
the  event  of  his  election  he  would  not  hesitate  to  retaliate  upon 
them. 

It  was  desirable,  too,  as  a  means  of  breaking  the  local  strength 
of  Abbett's  candidacy,  that  their  rival  candidate  should  be  taken 
from  a  section  of  the  State  nearer  to  Abbett's  own  county  of 
Hudson  than  Mercer,  which  was  Stockton's  home.  But  where 
was  the  man  in  that  section  with  sufficient  personality  to  com- 
mand a  following  ?  The  name  of  Frederick  H.  Teese,  of  Essex, 
was  canvassed  from  that  standpoint,  and  it  was  agreed  that  if 
the  suggestion  of  his  nomination  were  received  with  anything 
like  enthusiasm  they  would  advance  him ;  that  if  it  were  not, 
they  would  give  their  support,  as  a  last  resort,  to  Stockton,  but 
that  with  some  one  Abbett  was  to  be  beaten  at  all  hazards. 

The  publication  by  Judge  Teese,  a  few  days  later,  of  a  letter 
refusing  the  use  of  his  name,  was  accepted  by  the  Abbett  con- 
tingent as  a  notice  that  they  had  found  a  more  available  man, 
but  till  the  moment  he  was  sprung  upon  the  convention  they 
did  not  dream  who  he  was. 

But  one  man  in  all  of  Hudson  county  probably  knew  the 
name  they  proposed  to  conjure  with.  That  one  man  was  Orestes 
Cleveland,  a  politician  of  equal  influence  with  Mr.  Abbett,  who 
had  sworn  eternal  enmity  against  Abbett.  Mr.  Cleveland  had 
for  years  been  a  leading  spirit  in  Hudson  county  affairs.  He 
had  served  as  Mayor  of  Jersey  City  for  several  terms,  and 
had  represented  Hudson  and  Essex,  when  those  two  counties 
made  up  the  Sixth  district,  in  the  Congress  of  the  nation.  He 
was  a  skillful  and  resourceful  manipulator,  a  man  of  large 
wealth,  liberal  to  the  point  of  waste.  President  of  the  busy 
Dixon  Crucible  Works,  a  chief  mogul  among  the  American 
Institute  managers — the  man,  indeed,  whose  suggestion  and 
advocacy  had  originated  and  inspired  the  movement  for  the 
observance  of  the  Nation's  Centennial  Anniversary  by  the  great 
fair  at  Philadelphia.  His  associations  were  varied  and  exten- 
sive ;  his  interests  widespread.     He  was  known  personally  to  a 


MODERN   BA.TTLES  OF  TRENTON.  147 

large  proportion  of  the  voters  in  the  county,  and  his  office  in 
the  Dixon  works  was  the  center  from  which  all  the  political 
lines  radiated.  He  had  finished  his  term  in  Congress  in  1871, 
and,  tempted  by  the  prospect  of  being  the  Centennial  Mayor  of 
Jersey  City,  had  sought  the  nomination  for  that  municipal  office 
in  1876.  Henry  Traphagen,  who  was  then  serving  as  Mayor, 
was  entitled  by  party  usage  to  re  nomination,  and  his  friends 
retaliated  upon  Cleveland,  for  being  the  means  of  depriving  him 
of  it,  at  the  polls,  and  helped  to  throw  the  honor  he  so  eagerly 
coveted  to  Charles  Seidler,  the  active  head  of  the  Lorillard 
tobacco  house,  whom  the  Republicans  had  nominated. 

Mr.  Cleveland  recovered  his  ground  sufficiently  after  this 
defeat  to  become  a  candidate  for  delegate  to  the  National 
Democratic  Convention  at  St.  Louis  that,  a  few  months  later, 
nominated  Samuel  J.  Tilden  for  the  Presidency.  Mr.  Abbett 
was  a  candidate  for  the  same  distinction,  and  as  it  was  not  pos- 
sible for  both  to  have  it,  it  was  necessary  for  one  to  retire.  An 
arrangement  was  finally  made  by  which  Abbett  was  to  go  to 
St.  Louis  and  Cleveland  was  to  be  made  a  member  of  the 
National  Democratic  Executive  Committee.  Mr.  Abbett  was 
chosen  to  act  as  chairman  of  the  State  delegation  to  the  con- 
vention, and  when,  after  Mr.  Tilden  had  been  nominated,  the 
States  were  called  upon  to  name  their  executive  committeemen, 
it  became  Mr.  Abbett's  duty,  as  sponsor  for  the  delegation,  to 
hand  in  the  name  of  the  New  Jersey  member.  When  he  arose 
to  respond,  he  answered,  however,  not  with  the  name  of  Orestes 
Cleveland,  as  he  had  promised,  but  with  that  of  Miles  Ross,  of 
New  Brunswick,  a  veteran  leader  of  the  middle- state  Democracy. 
This  breach  of  the  engagement  made  Mr.  Cleveland  white  with 
anger  and  resentment,  and  he  vowed  that  if  he  could  prevent  it. 
Senator  Abbett  should  never  hold  another  elective  position. 

Mr.  Abbett's  appearance  before  the  State  Convention  of  1877 
for  the  gubernatorial  nomination  afforded  him  his  first  oppor- 
tunity to  strike  back,  and  he  and  the  State  House  autocrats 
found  a  Gommon  ground  of  sympathy  in  their  dislike  of  him. 

The  convention  was  held  on  Wednesday,  September  20th. 
The  preceding  night   had  been  one  of  unusual  excitement  in 


148  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

Tien  ton.  The  hotels  were  thronged  with  boisterous  workers 
from  all  parts  of  the  State.  Abbett's  was  the  name  on  most  of 
their  tongues.  That  the  delegates  from  counties  which  he  could 
not  reach  were  divided  between  Stockton,  John  T.  Bird,  William 
-A.  Righter  and  John  McGregor,  was  accepted  as  an  indication 
of  his  coming  triumph,  and  the  more  so  when,  as  the  night  wore 
•on,  it  was  noised  around  the  hotel  corridors  and  the  barrooms 
that  delegations  with  opposing  candidates  were  apparently  unable 
to  agree  on  any  one  of  them. 

When  the  delegates  trudged  to  the  Opera  House  at  noon  they 
found  the  places  which  they  expected  to  occupy  already  filled 
with  an  outside  rabble.  It  did  not  seem  to  occur  to  the  Abbett 
'managers  that  these  could  not  have  secured  admission  to  the 
benches  without  the  connivance  of  the  State  Committee's  guards 
at  the  door,  and  they  were  looked  upon  as  intruders  who  had 
negligently  been  allowed  to  pass  the  sentinels.  It  escaped  their 
notice,  too,  that  these  trespassers  were  skillfully  distributed  all 
over  the  hall.  The  delegates,  of  course,  clamored  for  their 
seats,  but  the  impudent  intruders  refused  to  make  room  for 
them,  and  the  great  throng  was  in  an  awful  hubbub  when 
William  W.  Shippen,  of  Hoboken,  Chairman  of  the  Democratic 
State  Committee,  hammered  the  pine  table  on  the  platform  with 
his  cane  for  order.  The  noisy  demands  of  the  standing  dele- 
gates for  their  places  were  quieted  for  a  time  by  Mr.  Shippen's 
assurance  that  seats  would  be  provided  for  them  in  due  season, 
and  Benjamin  Williamson,  of  Elizabeth,  the  shrewd  and  wily 
ex- Chancellor,  was  named  by  Mr.  Shippen  as  the  temporary 
Chairman.  The  hour  before  dinner  was  spent  in  the  usual 
organization  preliminaries,  and  the  convention  arose  for  a  recess. 

When  the  delegates  re-assembled  at  two  o'clock,  the  platform 
of  the'  party  was  read  by  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Organization  and  accepted,  and  then  Ashbel  Green  moved  that 
the  convention  proceed  to  the  selection  of  the  candidate  for 
Governor.  The  delegates  had  found  their  seats,  when  they  re- 
turned to  the  hall,  in  the  hands  of  the  same  outside  crowd  that 
had  displaced  them  in  the  morning,  and  their  renewed  clamors 
for  their  places  precipitated  again  the  bedlam  that  had  marked 


MODERN   BA.TTLES   OF  TRENTON.  149 


the  morning  session.  Chairman  Williamson  made  a  pretence  of 
aiding  them  to  secure  their  seats,  but  the  outsiders  were  re- 
luctant to  go  and  the  Chairman  was  not  firmly  insistent  that 
they  should.  Some  of  the  delegations  attempted  to  force  them 
out,  and  there  was  a  pitched  battle  between  them  and  the  Union 
county  men  up  in  one  of  the  gallery- lofts  that  nearly  turned 
the  convention  into  a  riot. 

Amid  a  din  that  made  the  announcement  of  the  names  almost 
inaudible,  the  counties  were  called  upon  for  nominations. 
Atlantic,  Bergen,  Burlington,  Camden,  Cape  May,  Cumber- 
land, had  no  name  to  present.  E-sex  responded  with  the  names 
of  William  A.  Righter,  John  McGregor  and  one  man  timidly 
articulated  Geneial  McClellan's.  Then  it  began  to  be  apparent 
why  the  crowd  of  outsiders  had  leen  permitted  to  enter  the 
hall.  They  broke  into  an  uproar  of  cheers  that  delayed  the 
proceedings  for  several  minutes.  Gloucester  named  Benjamin 
F.  Carter.  When  Hudson  was  called,  Charles  H.  Win  field 
presented  the  name  of  Leon  Abbett  in  a  speech  of  splendid 
eloquence.  Hunterdon  named  Bird,  Mercer  named  Stockton,^ 
Middlesex  named  Wright  Robbing,  Passaic  named  her  courtly 
Senator,  John  Hopper — and  the  roll  was  called  for  the  votes. 

Before  the  result  had  been  announced,  a  thin,  piping  voice 
pierced  the  din  from  the  shadow  of  the  gallery.  It  was  heard 
shrilly  calling  the  attention  of  the  delegates  to  the  unlikelihood, 
because  of  the  multitude  of  candidates  and  the  bitterness  of 
their  rivalries,  of  an  agreement  upon  any  one  of  them,  and  then 
it  launched  out  into  an  exordium  of  one  about  whose  fitness 
and  availability  there  could  not  be  two  opinions.  It  talked 
about  the  greatness  of  a  Democratic  soldier  who  had  led  the 
Union  troops  to  victory  in  the  Rebellion ;  a  man  who  had  been 
reviled  and  spat  upon  by  the  Eepublican  national  leaders  be- 
cause of  his  Democracy ;  a  man  who  had  even  been  mentioned 
in  connection  with  the  presidency ;  a  man  who — 

"  Name  the  man,"  shouted  the  crowd  on  the  floor. 

"Name  him,"  echoed  back  the  impatient  throng  in  the  gallery. 

"Name  him,"  was   the  command  that,  as  with  one  voice,, 
swept  the  great  audience  from  dome  to  pit. 


t50  MODERN   BA.TTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

"  I  name  him,"  screamed  the  little  orator  with  penetrating 
voice ;  "  I  name  George  B.  McClellan,  of  Essex." 

It  was  as  if  a  brand  had  been  dropped  into  a  powder  maga- 
zine. The  climax,  to  the  effectiveness  of  which  the  invading 
throng  of  outsiders  had  been  hired  to  contribute,  was  reached, 
and  they  broke  into  a  bedlam  of  hurrahs.  Even  the  Abbett 
contingent,  mistaking  the  pre-arranged  demonstration  for  an 
outburst  of  genuine  and  spontaneous  enthusiasm,  joined  in  the 
approving  chorus.  One  wave  of  cheers  would  scarcely  die 
away  before  a  new  one  would  be  started  on  its  whirlwind 
course.  And  when  the  claquers  let  go  because  they  had  ex- 
hausted themselves,  some  one  turned  a  picture  that  had  been 
suspended,  face  to  the  wall,  from  a  wire  that  extended  overhead 
to  the  proscenium,  and  moved  it  slowly  along  the  wire  from  the 
back  of  the  stage  into  the  view  of  the  excited  and  shouting 
throng.  It  was  the  face  of  McClellan,  marching  to  a  new 
victory.  The  thousand  men  in  the  house  greeted  it  as  it  ad- 
vanced toward  them  with  delirious  enthusiasm.  The  band  in 
the  gallery  caught  the  inspiration — by  instruction,  it  may  be 
presumed — and  as  it  moved  majestically  forward  struck  up  the 
old  familiar  battle  hymn,  "  See,  The  Conquering  Hero  Comes." 

And  there,  over  the  heads  of  the  chief  men  of  the  State,  he 
seemed  to  be  coming  again  to  take  command  of  the  army  of 
hailing  devotees  in  front  of  him.  And,  in  the  midst  of  it  all, 
the  shrill  little  voice  hidden  in  the  shadow  of  the  gallery  stole 
forth  into  the  din  and  the  roar  again  to  deliver  the  fical  blow 
to  Abbett's  hopes. 

"  I  move  that  General  George  B.  McClellan  be  nominated  by 
acclamation,"  it  spoke. 

The  picture  and  the  band  and  the  motion  were  all  working 
together  to  sway  the  crowd,  and  then  the  delegations  that  had 
been  held  in  check  by  the  State  House  magnates  were  let  loose 
to  climax  the  pre-arranged  display.  They  tumbled  over  one 
another  in  their  eagerness  to  drop  their  local  candidates  for  the 
hero  of  the  hour.  Colonel  Zulick  swept  the  hall  with  enthu- 
siasm when  he  delivered  the  great  vote  of  Essex  to  McClellan. 
Hunterdon  broke  from  Bird  to  the  Orange  mountain  warrior. 


1 


George  B  McClellan. 


152  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TEENTON. 

Mercer  left  Stockton  for  him.  Middlesex  went  from  Wright 
Robbins  to  him.  The  claquers  skillfully  sandwiched  between 
delegates  all  through  the  hall,  the  moving  picture,  the  band, 
the  flopping  delegations,  were  too  much  for  the  composure  of 
the  convention.  Even  the  Abbett  counties  caught  the  infection, 
and  their  delegates,  anxious  to  be  with  the  winning  side,  became 
part  of  the  tumult.  And  finally,  his  own  county  of  Hudson 
joined  the  hired  claquers  in  making  McClellan's  nomination 
unanimous.* 

Mr.  Winfield  tried  to  stem  the  tide  by  sonorous  protests  that 
General  McClellan  was  not  a  resident  of  the  Slate  of  New 
Jersey.  Short  and  round  David  Dodd,  of  Essex,  who  had 
answered  the  nominating  voice  that  came  from  the  shadow  of 
the  gallery  with  a  hearty  and  enthusiastic  second,  declared  that 
he  was,  and  the  convention  accepted  his  assurances  with  a  new 
burst  of  cheers.  Secretary  Kelsey  and  Henry  S.  Little,  inter- 
ested spectators  of  the  spectacular  coup  they  had  arranged  for 
Senator  Abbett,  fell  on  each  other's  shoulders,  in  one  of  the 
boxes  off  the  proscenium,  when  the  day's  work  was  finished, 
and  Governor  Bedle's  cherub  face  became  radiant  when  the 
news  of  Abbett's  defeat  was  borne  to  him  in  the  Executive 
Chamber. 

But  the  most  delighted  man  in  all  New  Jersey  was  Orestes 
Cleveland.  The  dramatic  defeat  of  his  rival  was  his  work. 
McClellan's  name  had  been  suggested  to  his  mind  as  an  excellent 
one  to  conjure  with  by  an  incident  of  the  convention  that,  three 
years  before,  had  put  Governor  Bedle  in  nomination.  A  dele- 
gate to  that  convention,  Mr.  Cleveland  had  remembered  that 
when  the  county  of  Salem  gave  out  the  name  of  a  McClellan  as 
its  representative  on  one  of  the  organization  committees,  the  as- 
sembled multitude,  mistaking  the  man  for  the  hero  of  Antietam, 
had  broken  into  rapturous  applause;  and  now  when  both  him- 

*The  clerks  of  the  Democratic  Convention,  who  kept  the  tally  of  the  votes 
by  county  as  tliey  were  announced,  figured  the  vote  from  the  unannounced 
roll-call  this  way:  Ablxnt,304;  Kighter,  103;  McGregor,  81 ;  McClellan,  171 ; 
Carter,  39;  Bird,  63;  Stockton,  153  ;  Hopper,  40  ;  Kobbins,  12  ;  A.  A.  Harden- 
bergh,  3.  After  the  change  of  counties  to  McClellan,  the  vole  stood :  Mc- 
Clellan, 804;  Abbett,  156;  Carter,  21,  and  Stockton,  2. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  15a 

self  and  the  State  House  managers , were  in  quest  of  a  candidate 
who  could  enthuse  the  Democratic  masses  against  Abbett,  he  had 
whispered  the  name  into  the  ears  of  the  State  House  chieftains. 

It  had  been  part  of  their  scheme  to  keep  the  name  secret  till 
they  were  ready  to  spring  it  on  the  convention,  and  their  move- 
ments had  been  so  cat-like  that  not  even  a  hint  of  it  had  reached 
the  Abbett  headquarters.  Their  control  of  the  State  Committee 
had  afforded  them  the  fullest  opportunity  for  the  perfection  of 
their  plans.  It  gave  them  a  Chairman  to  aid  them  in  giving 
drift  to  the  movements  of  the  convention.  It  gave  them  the 
freedom  of  the  meeting-place  that  enabled  them  to  hide  that  re- 
versed picture  in  the  shades  at  the  rear  of  the  stage,  and  to  pack 
the  house  with  the  hired  claquers  who  were  to  greet  it,  when  it 
was  shown,  with  a  hubbub  that  should  take  the  convention  off 
its  feet. 

The  Republican  editors  took  the  cue  from  Winfield's  protest, 
and  made  the  most  of  the  doubts  as  to  General  McClellan's 
eligibility  because  of  his  want  of  residence  in  the  State. 

"  If  I  am  not  a  resident  of  New  Jersey,"  the  General  said, 
between  puffs  of  smoke,  to  an  enterprising  newspaper  man  who 
visited  him  at  his  showy  residence  on  the  Orange  mountains  a 
day  or  two  after  his  nomination,  "  I  have  no  residence  anywhere 
in  the  country.  I  have  lived  here  since  1863;  voted  at  many 
elections  and  cast  my  ballot  here  for  Seymour  in  1868  and 
Tilden  last  year.  At  the  presidential  election  of  1864  you 
know  I  could  not  vote." 

The  Republicans  held  their  convention  for  the  selection  of  a 
candidate  against  the  General  the  following  week.  The  signs 
of  McClellan's  popularity  were  so  convincicg  and  overwhelming 
that  no  one  was  anxious  to  risk  the  battle  against  him,  and  by 
common  consent  it  was  agreed  to  let  Dr.  William  A.  Newell, 
of  Cumberland,  have  the  nomination.  Joseph  Coult,  of  Essex, 
Chairman  of  the  Republican  State  Committee,  called  the  con- 
vention to  order,  and  ex- Judge  Charles  H.  Voorhis,  of  Bergen, 
was  made  the  temporary  Chairman.  General  Judson  Kilpat- 
rick  was  chosen  by  the  Committee  on  Permanent  Organizition 
for  permanent  Chairman.     Some  of  the  counties  put  Senator 


154  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 

Frederic  A.  Potts'  name  before  the  convention.  General  Kil- 
patrick,  too,  was  mentioned,  but  he  promptly  declined.  The 
majority  of  the  delegations  presented  Dr.  Newell's  came.  On 
the  first  formal  ballot  Newell  had  360  voles;  Potts,  142; 
William  Walter  Phelpp,  of  Bergen,  28,  and  Gardner  R.  Colby, 
of  Essex,  30,  and  Dr.  Newell  was  declared  the  nominee. 

The  campaign  was  begun  on  both  sides  as  soon  as  the  two 
tickets  had  been  completed.  McClellan's  vi&its  to  the  different 
parts  of  the  State  were  like  a  triumphal  march.  His  mass 
meetings  were  crowded  to  suffocation,  and  throngs,  eager  to 
touch  the  tips  of  his  fingers,  surged  around  his  carriage  as  it 
went  through  the  streets.  One  night,  Abraham  Browning,  as 
famous  among  lawyers  for  his  blue  coat  and  brass  buttons  and 
ruffled  shirt  front  as  for  his  learning,  entertained  him  at  his 
house  in  Camden,  and  the  crowd  that  choked  the  streets  to  greet 
him,  even  in  that  stronghold  of  Republicanism,  made  his  passage 
almost  impossible. 

"  What  do  you  do  to  these  people,"  Supreme  Court  Clerk  Lee, 
who  was  with  him,  asked,  ^'  that  makes  them  so  fond  of  you  ?  " 

"  I  don't  remember  ever  to  have  done  more  than  my  duty," 
was  McClellan's  answer.  "A  soldier  is  after  all  a  human  being, 
but  then  you  remember  sympathy  begets  sympathy,  and  when 
you  like  a  man  he  likes  you.  When  I  hear  the  shouts  of  a 
crowd  like  this  outside  my  carriage  window,  and  realize  that  I 
am  the  occasion  of  it  all,  I  feel  as  though  I  were  traveling  in  an 
unknown  world.  It's  like  a  dream,  and  I  can  scarcely  bring 
myself  to  a  full  consciousness  that  it  is  real." 

In  marked  contrast  to  the  receptions  accorded  to  General  Mc- 
Clellan  were  those  which  Dr.  Newell  received.  By  his  attacks 
upon  the  chief  men  of  his  own  party  he  made  new  enemies  at 
every  place  at  which  he  spoke,  and  nothing  could  tave  been 
more  maladroit  than  his  entire  canvass  from  beginning  to  end. 
At  Camden,  for  instance,  he  had  a  fling  to  make  at  what  he 
characterized  as  the  enormous  expenses  attending  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  National  Guard.  General  Sewell,  the  chieftain  at 
once  of  one  of  the  brigades  of  the  National  Guard  and  of  the 
party  whose  suffrages  he  was  seeking,  was  one  of  his  offended 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  155 

hearers.  At  Woodbury,  he  declared  that  one  of  the  most  un- 
justifiable expenditures  made  by  the  State  was  that  for  the  Fish 
Commissioners.  An  influential  Republican  member  of  the  Fish 
Commission  went  away  from  that  meeting  vowing  vengeance 
upon  him.  In  Newark,  he  took  occasion  to  denounce  the  "ex- 
travagance "  of  the  Morris  Plains  Asylum  Commission.  Ex- 
Congressman  George  A.  Halsey,  the  most  powerful  Republican 
leader  Essex  has  ever  known,  was  a  working  member  of  that 
commission,  and  before  he  left  the  hall  he  told  Dr.  Newell  that 
that  speech  would  cost  him  two  thousand  Republican  votes. 
When  election  day  came  the  offended  Republican  leaders  helped 
the  Democrats  to  thtir  victory.  Mr.  Halsey  manifested  his 
displeasure  by  even  voting  an  open  ticket  against  Newell,  and 
on  the  count  of  the  ballots  General  McClellan  was  over  twelve 
thousand  ahead  of  him.  Newell's  percentage  of  the  total  vote 
was  the  smallest  that  had  ever  been  achieved  by  a  Republican 
candidate  up  to  that  time. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

Which  is  a    Medley,  Embracing    Eeferences  to  a    Particularly 

Unsatisfactory  Democratic  Legislature,  to  General  Mott's 

Trial  for  Abusing  Convicts  and  to  the  Bankruptcy 

of  the  Cities  of  Elizabeth  and  Kahway. 


\^#^ 


h^NERAL  McCLELLAN  was  inaugurated  Governor 
in  January,  1878,  with  the  usual  ceremonies,  except 
that,  because  of  the  expected  throng,  the  exercises, 
usually  held  either  in  the  Senate  Chamber  or  at  Taylor 
Opera  House,  took  place  on  the  green  in  front  of  the  State 
House,  where  a  platform  had  been  erected  for  the  committees 
and  the  guests.  Senator  Charles  B.  Moore,  of  Somerset,  was 
Chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  of  Arrangements,  and  Assem- 
blyman Dudley  S.  Steele,  of  Hudson,  of  the  House  Committee. 
A  notable  feature  of  the  occasion  was  the  presence  of  a  large 
number  of  distinguished  New  Yorkers — Corporation  Counsel 
William  C.  Whitney,  ex- Governor  John  T.  Hoffman,  Comp- 
troller John  Kelly,  General  Martin  T.  McMahon  and  Banker 
Edward  Schell  among  them. 

The  Legislature  that  opened  the  new  administration  was 
Democratic  in  both  branches.  The  Senate  had  twelve  Demo- 
crats and  nine  Republicans ;  the  House,  thirty-three  Democrats, 
twenty- seven  Republicans.  It  was  the  first  occasion  since  187(> 
on  which  both  Houses  had  been  in  control  of  the  Democrats. 

There  were  a  number  of  exceptionally  brilliant  men  in  the 
Senate,  but  the  Assembly  won  the  reputation  of  being  the  worst 
that  had  gathered  in  Trenton  in  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Par- 
tisanship ran  riot,  and  the  dignified  Senators  had  to  keep  their 
eyes  well  opened  to  intercept  the  "  strike"  bills  that  were  rushed 
to  them  for  concurrence.  Not  satisfied  to  trust  again  to  the 
gerrymander  that  had  brought  them  to  Trenton,  they  devised 
(156) 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  157 

another  gerrymander  that  was  believed  to  assure  to  the  Demo- 
crats the  control  of  the  State  for  many  years,  and  in  the  hope  of 
reducing  the  Republican  vote  they  even  passed  an  act  disfran- 
chising college  students.  Dominie  John  H.  Robinson,  a  droll 
and  popular  member  from  one  of  the  Pagsaic  districts,  told  them 
that  they  ought  to  be  satisfied  with  an  arrangement  of  the  As- 
sembly lines  that  had  given  them  thirty-three  of  the  sixty  seats 
in  the  House,  and  warned  them  that  the  changes  they  proposed 
to  make  might  turn  the  majority  the  other  way.  The  dominie 
proved  himself  to  be  a  prophet.  The  next  Legislature  elected 
under  the  new  lines  had  thirty-three  Republicans  and  twenty- 
seven  Democrats.  The  act  disfranchising  the  college  students 
was  a  nine  days'  wonder  throughout  the  State,  and  at  the  election 
in  the  fall  produced  violent  disorders  at  Princeton,  the  seat  of 
Nassau  Hall,  and  New  Brunswick,  where  Rutgers  College  is 
situated.  The  students  insisted  on  voting  and  resisted  all 
attempts  to  interfere  with  them. 

The  Senate  clashed  with  Governor  McClellan  over  some  of 
the  appointments,  and  there  was  a  good  deal  of  bad  blood  be- 
tween him  and  that  body.  He  retaliated  upon  Senators  Pid- 
cock,  of  Hunterdon,  and  Hendrickson,  of  Monmouth,  because 
they  had  been  Abbett's  allies  in  the  gubernatorial  convention  of 
the  preceding  fall,  and  snubbed  them  when  it  fell  to  his  lot  to 
make  appointments  for  their  counties.  They  were  especially 
embittered  because  of  their  suspicion  that  Abbett's  bitterest  foe, 
"  Staff"  Little,  was  his  accepted  adviser  in  these  instances.  The 
controversy  between  the  Senate  and  the  Governor  continued  in 
fact  all  through  his  administration.  The  Republican  Legis- 
lature of  1879  as  violently  opposed  his  nominations  on  the 
ground  that  his  judiciary  selections  should  be  made  on  a  non- 
partisan basis. 

The  only  incident  connected  with  the  Legislature  of  1878 
that  calls  for  any  attention  here,  was  the  arraignment  of  Major- 
General  Mott,  who  was  then  the  Keeper  of  the  State  Prison,  on 
charges  of  inhuman  treatment  of  the  convicts.  A  prisoner 
named  Snook,  who  had  been  convicted  in  the  Somerset  county 
courts,  through  the  efforts  of  Prosecutor  James  J.  Bergen,  of  a 


158  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


heinous  crime,  and  sentenced  to  fifteen  years  in  the  State  Prison,^ 
was  reported  to  the  county  physician  of  Mercer  as  having  died 
suddenly  in  the  State  Prison.  Rumors  spread  outside  the  prison 
walls  that  he  had  been  a  victim  of  needlessly  cruel  discipline. 
On  inquiry  the  discovery  was  made  that  the  man  had  been 
gagged  and  forced  into  a  dungeon  and  s'rung  up  by  his  wrists — 
his  toes  barely  touching  the  floor — and,  in  spite  of  his  piteous 
plea  with  his  torturer  not  to  kill  him,  left  there  for  hours. 
When  the  under-keeper  went  in  to  see  how  he  was  getting 
along  he  found  him  dead.  The  discovery  led  to  a  general 
inquiry  as  to  Mott's  management  of  the  prison.  It  was  shown 
that  he  was  harsh  and  overbearing  and  a  heartless  martinet,  but 
for  political  reasons  the  House  refused  to  present  him  to  the 
Senate  for  impeachment. 

Agreeably  to  Dominie  Robinson's  prophecy,  the  Legislature 
of  1879  had  a  working  Republican  majority  in  each  House. 
Schuyler  B.  Jackson,  of  Essex — a  brother  of  F.  Wolcott  Jack- 
son, known  throughout  the  railroad  world  as  the  Superintendent 
of  the  New  York  division  of  the  Pennsylvania  railroad — was 
Speaker  of  the  Assembly,  and  General  William  J.  Sewell 
President  of  the  Senate.  The  two  Houses  had  hardly  got 
together  before  the  Republican  majority  started  hot-footed  after 
the  State  officials.  A  fee  system  for  their  compensation  pre- 
vailed, and  the  incomes  of  the  holders  of  some  of  the  State 
offices  were  said  to  be  enormous.*  Secretary  of  State  Kelsey's 
office  was  reputed  to  be  worth  $25,000  a  year.  Ex- Senator 
Henry  S.  Little,  who  had  become  Clerk  of  the  Court  of  Chan- 
cery, was  said  to  be  in  receipt  of  $30,000  a  year.  Supreme 
Court  Clerk  Benjamin  F.  Lee  was  understood  to  have  a  more 
than  comfortable  income  from  his  office.  The  Republicans 
might  not  have  been  particularly  interested  in  these  figures  if 
they  had  not  felt  assured  that  the  money  largely  went  into  the 
Democratic  campaign  fund.  They  called  public  attention  to 
these  rich  places,  and  started  out  to  make  them  salaried  positions 

*The  fee  system  had  been  discussed  before,  and  the  Legislature  of  1876 
attempted  to  make  an  inquiry  even  as  to  the  Governor's  fees,  but  he  refused 
to  be  catechised. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.         159- 


instead  of  fee  positions.  The  imperiled  officials  surrounded 
them  with  amiable  social  influences,  however,  and  succeeded  in 
drawing  some  of  the  fire  from  the  guns  that  were  trained  upon 
them.  The  salary  system  was  not  established,  but  a  series  of 
acts — denounced,  of  course,  by  the  Democratic  press  as  of  purely 
partisan  inspiration,  but  put  through  in  spite  of  the  noisy  pro- 
tests of  the  Democratic  minority — skimmed  about  thirty-three 
per  cent.  oiF  their  fees.  The  Legislature,  furthermore,  lost  no 
time  in  undoing  the  partisan  work  of  its  predecessor,  aud  re- 
pealed, among  other  acts,  the  obnoxious  College  act. 

Financial  embarrassments  with  which  two  or  three  of  the 
cities  were  threatened  by  the  operations  of  indiscreet  or  dishonest 
officials  at  about  this  time,  pointed  to  the  necessity  of  placing  in 
the  hands  of  the  people  a  check  of  some  kind.  The  cities  of 
Elizabeth  and  Rahway,  which  had  been  plundered  right  and 
left,  defaulted  during  the  year  in  the  payment  of  the  interest 
upon  their  bonds,  and  both  were  driven  into  bankruptcy.  The 
Elizabeth  city  failure  was  due  to  the  improvideat  extension  into 
the  untenanted  woods  lying  around  her  of  broad  and  hand- 
somely-paved highways.  There  was  no  public  necessity  for 
them.  The  only  purpose  of  their  construction  was  the  enrich- 
ment of  the  contractors  who  laid  them  out  and  the  colluding 
city  officials  who  authorized  the  work.  It  would  be  years  be- 
fore the  property  abutting  upon  the  highways  could  find  a 
market ;  such  a  thing  as  assessing  it  for  benefits  was  out  of  the 
question,  and  the  whole  cost  of  the  "  improvement "  was  thrown 
back  upon  the  city  at  large.  Mainly  from  this  cause  the  city 
found  herself  staggering  under  a  debt  of  $6,000,000,  and  so 
exhausted  by'previous  payments  of  interest  money  that,  in  1879, 
she  was  unable  to  bear  the  burden  longer  and  sent  notices  of  her 
collapse  to  her  creditors. 

These,  becoming  apprehensive,  started  after  her  in  full  tilt 
and  with  the  apparent  determination  of  seizing  her  and  hold- 
ing her  at  a  ransom.  The  Singer  Sewing  Machine  Company, 
as  a  corporation,  and  George  R.  MacKenzie,  its  President,  as 
an  individual,  and  the  Mutual  Benefit  Insurance  Company  of 
Newark  held  between  them  the  bulk  of  the  discredited  securi- 


160 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


ties.  They  commeuced  proceedings  by  mandamus  in  the  State 
oourts  to  force  the  city  authorities  to  make  provision  in  the  en- 
suing tax  levy  for  the  payment  of  the  accrued  debt.  Judgment 
was  a  mere  matter  of  form,  and  one  morning  they  walked  into 
the  ofiBce  of  Comptroller  A.  B.  Carleton  to  take  possession  of 
all  of  the  city  property.  For  several  weeks  Mr.  Carleton's 
office  was  the  liveliest  place  in  the  State,  and  he  and  his  fellow 
■city  officials  were  kept  on  a  continual  dance  by  their  effiarts  to 
dodge  the  legal  processes  with  which  they  were  followed. 

Eventually,  in  order 
to  evade  the  court's  or- 
der directing  the  mak- 
ing of  an  appropriation 
to  meet  the  claims,  a 
majority  of  the  city 
Board  of  Assessors — 
that  whose  duty  it  was 
to  make  the  levy  — 
resigned  their  offices. 
This,  of  course,  brought 
fresh  embarrassments  to 
the  city,  because,  with- 
out a  Board  of  Assess- 
ors, it  was  just  as  im- 
possible to  raise  money 
to  meet  the  current  ex- 
penses as  to  raise  money 
to  appease  the  creditors. 
Left  without  a  means  of  paying  its  teachers,  or  its  firemen,  or 
its  policemen,  or  its  Mayor  and  financial  officers,  Elizabeth  was 
practically  no  longer  a  city  at  all.  In  despair  they  sought  Sena- 
tor Abbett  for  relief  from  the  dilemma,  and  he  in  time  devised 
a  shrewd  scheme  that  made  every  bankrup!;  city,  like  Elizabeth, 
the  ward  of  the  State,  and  gave  to  the  Governor  authority  to 
appoint  a  tax  commission  from  among  the  citizens,  with  simple 
power  to  raise  sufficient  money  to  maintain  the  local  government. 
This  board,  when  it  was  appointed,  was  a  State  board,  and  could 


A.  B   Carleton. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         161 

not  therefore  be  pursued  as  part  of  the  city  government  by  the 
importunate  creditors.  Its  functions  were  limited  to  the  raising 
of  only  so  much  money  as  was  needed  to  meet  current  local  ex- 
penses, and  it  could  not  consequently  be  compelled  to  include  in 
its  appropriations  any  of  the  moneys  demanded  in  settlement 
of  the  debt.  Elizabeth  staggered  along  under  this  provisional 
kind  of  government  for  a  good  many  years.  The  creditors  saw 
that  they  were  balked,  and  ten  or  twelve  years  after  the  day  of 
bankruptcy  they  entered  into  negotiations  that  resulted  in  the 
settlement  of  the  claims  at  about  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar.  Her 
bankruptcy  set  the  city  back  at  least  twenty-five  years  in  pro- 
gress and  improvement.  Property  lost  its  value,  and  the  hand- 
some residences  on  "  Quality  Hill "  were  abandoned  by  their 
owners  to  their  hostlers  or  to  care-takers. 

The  cheated  and  defrauded  taxpayers  started  in  pursuit  of  the 
corrupt  officials  who  had  brought  their  miseries  upon  them  the 
moment  the  default  became  known.  Several  were  haled  to  the 
bar  for  fraud  and  conspiracy,  and  Supreme  Court  Judge  Bennet 
Van  Syckel,  sitting  in  the  Oyer  and  Terminer,  spent  several 
days  in  the  trial  of  Leggett,  the  City  Treasurer,  and  upon  his 
conviction  sent  him  to  State  Prison  for  seven  years,  to  keep  com- 
pany with  a  colony  of  distinguished  bank  and  city  officials  whose 
presence  in  the  State  Prison  at  the  same  time  made  one  of  the 
corners  of  the  institution  famously  known  as  "  Bankers'  Row." 

The  bankruptcy  of  Rahway  was  a  much  less  pretentious  and 
exciting  incident  of  the  time.  She  had  recklessly  run  into  debt 
for  new  water  works  and  a  whole  line  of  superfluous  et  ceteraSf 
and  was  just  unable  to  meet  her  obligations  because  of  her  ex- 
travagances. Jersey  City,  too,  was  tottering  on  the  brink,  and 
three  years  later  was  in  such  financial  peril  that  her  frightened 
Board  of  Finance  resigned  in  dismay  and  it  required  all  the 
skill  and  daring  of  Allan  L.  McDermott,  Thomas  D.  Jordan, 
who  subsequently  became  the  Controller  of  the  great  Equitable 
Assurance  Society  of  New  York,  of  Emil  E.  Datz  and  ex- Con- 
gressman Augustus  A.  Hardenbergh,  who  succeeded  them,  to 
save  her  from  ruin. 

11 


162  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

All  these  impending  disasters  were  in  the  air  while  the  Legis- 
lature of  1879  was  in  session,  and  the  necessity  for  action  that 
would  protect  the  people  against  their  untrustworthy  rulers  en- 
gaged the  best  minds  in  both  Houses.  The  fruition  of  their 
deliberations  was  the  presentation  by  Garret  A.  Hobart,  the 
brilliant  Senator  from  Passaic,  of  an  act  authorizing  the  sum- 
mary investigation  of  the  books  of  city  and  county  officials.  It 
commands  the  Presiding  Justice  in  any  Circuit  to  make  the  ex- 
amination, with  the  aid  of  experts  if  he  needs  them,  upon  the 
application  of  twenty- five  freeholders.  The  Legislature  gave 
its  concurrence  to  the  act  almost  without  debate,  and  Governor 
McClelJan's  signature  made  it  law.  Singularly  enough,  not- 
withstanding the  opportunity  it  opens  for  the  immediate  dis- 
covery of  fraud  or  irregularity  on  the  part  of  ruling  officials,  the 
value  of  this  important  act  seems  not  to  have  been  thoroughly 
appreciated  by  the  taxpayers  of  the  State,  and  it  has  been  called 
into  play  much  less  frequently  than  the  public  good  has  required. 

The  prohibition  by  the  State  Constitution  of  special  laws  still 
continued  to  puzzle  the  legislative  mind.  Interested  schemers 
had  devised  all  kinds  of  devices  to  dodge  it,  and  the  Supreme  Court 
had  set  aside  their  acts,  one  after  the  other,  as  violative  of  the 
new  constitutional  principle ;  and  it  began  to  be  realized  that 
something  like  a  system  of  general  legislation  was  the  only  thing 
that  the  courts  would  uphold.  The  Legislature  had  undertaken 
to  deal  with  the  matter  itself  through  what  was  known  as  the 
"High  Joint"  Committee,  which  devised  a  scheme  of  general 
laws  which  the  Legislature  refused  to  accept.  By  authority  of 
the  Legislature  of  1879,  Governor  McClellan  selected  special 
commissions,  one  with  ex- Senators  Magieand  Abbett  among  the 
members,  to  frame  a  general  law  for  the  government  of  cities, 
and  another  having  Professor  Atherton,  of  Rutgers,  ex-Senator 
John  Hopper,  of  Passaic,  and  John  P.  Jackson  among  its  mem- 
bers, to  codify  the  tax  laws.  Each  of  the  commissions  submitted 
a  scheme,  but  it  was  altogether  too  ethereal  to  go. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

In  Which  Abbett  Joins  Hands  With  His  State  House  Kivals  to 
Even  up  Scores  With  Orestes  Cleveland,  and  the  Repub- 
licans Suffer  a  Great  Disappointment  Because  of 
Their   Failure  to   Elect   Potts  to 
THE  Governorship. 


[pHE  breach  in  the  Democratic  party  grew  wider  and 
wider  as  the  campaign  of  1880,  in  which  a  successor 
was  to  be  chosen  for  Governor  McClellan,  drew  near. 
The  State  House  magnates  were  visibly  staggering 
under  the  blow  Senator  McPherson  had  administered  in  1877, 
and  their  power  was  on  the  wane,  while  Senator  Abbett's  popu- 
lar policy  was  bringing  him  into  greater  prominence  every  day  as 
their  rival  in  leadership.  The  Republicans  believed  that  these 
factional  disturbances  in  the  household  of  their  opponents  placed 
the  State  within  their  reach,  and  there  was  a  general  concurrence 
of  sentiment  among  them  that  the  nomination  of  their  strongest 
man  might  give  the  State  a  Republican  government.  After  a 
careful  comparison  of  records  and  an  accurate  weighing  up  of 
forces,  they  concluded  that  with  Frederic  A.  Potts  at  the  head 
of  their  ticket  hope  would  look  like  an  assurance.  Mr.  Potts 
was  one  of  the  kings  of  the  coal  trade  in  New  York  City,  of  the 
highest  social  standing,  of  large  wealth,  with  widespread  corpora- 
tion alliances,  tall,  full-bodied  and  stately,  of  florid  face  and  fine 
presence,  who  had  held  his  own  with  Abbett,  Magie,  Hopper 
and  the  other  intellectual  giants  of  the  two  Senates  in  which  he 
had  served  as  the  Senator  from  Hunterdon,  and  altogether  the 
kind  of  man  whom  no  body  of  politicians  would  think  of  in- 
viting to  lead  a  forlorn  hope.  The  Democrats  shrewdly  guessed 
— not  so  shrewdly  either,  for  it  was  an  easy  guess  after  all — 
when  the  probability  of  his  selection  as  the  Republican  candidate 

(163) 


164  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

became  knowD,  that  their  opponents  were  preparing  to  give- 
them  the  hardest  fight  for  the  mastery  they  had  seen  in  many  a 
year ;  and  when  so  early  a  day  as  August  20th  was  fixed  as  the 
date  for  the  holding  of  the  Republican  State  Convention,  it  was 
plain  that  the  Republicans  did  not  propose  to  allow  the  vote  to 
be  taken  without  the  most  searching  and  thorough  canvass  of 
the  State. 

When,  on  the  designated  day  in  August,  the  delegates  assem- 
bled in  the  Opera  House  at  Trenton,  Amos  Clark,  Jr.,  of  Eliza- 
beth, Chairman  of  the  Republican  State  Committee,  called  them 
to  order,  and  ex-Judge  William  T.  Hoffman,  a  noted  Hudson 
county  lawyer,  officiated  as  their  temporary  President.  The 
Committee  on  Organization  reported  ex-Secretary  George  M. 
Robeson  as  permanent  Chairman,  and  on  the  call  of  the  counties 
for  nominations  Mr.  Potts'  name  was  practically  the  only  one 
presented.  A  few  of  the  delegates  were  clamorous  for  Kilpat- 
rick,  but  the  eloquent  little  cavalryman  leaped  to  the  foot-light& 
to  beg  them  to  fall  in  line  for  the  Hunterdon  Senator.  Further 
call  of  the  roll  was  unnecessary.  Some  one  moved  Potts'  nomi- 
nation by  acclamation,  and  it  went  through  with  a  hurrah. 

The  Republicans  believed,  when  Mr.  Potts,  at  his  summer 
home  at  Monmouth  Beach,  notified  the  committee  deputed 
to  wait  upon  him,  of  his  willingness  to  accept  the  nomi- 
nation thus  tendered  to  him,  that  they  had  assured  his 
election  by  combining  all  the  great  corporation  interests  in  the 
State  upon  his  candidacy.  The  Pennsylvania  railroad,  mar- 
shaled into  politics  by  General  Sewell,  had  long  been  recognized 
as  an  enormous  Republican  factor.  The  Jersey  Central,  always 
at  the  beck  and  call  of  that  old  war-horse  of  the  Democracy, 
Judge  Francis  S.  Lathrop,  had,  if  it  was  the  ally  of  either  side, 
been  rather  counted  as  a  Democratic  aid.  Mr.  Potts  was  him- 
self one  of  the  most  influential  of  the  Jersey  Central  stock- 
holders, and  there  was  an  idea  in  Republican  circles  that  his 
presence  in  the  field  would  make  the  old  Judge  indifferent  for 
once  about  his  party's  success.  The  railroads  that  were  not 
thus  represented  by  his  candidacy  were  easily  amenable  to  the 


'j?l  '^.. 

\ 

'^". 

«. 

" 

^ 

i     ^ 

»., 

~__^_l 

i   '■  •■:■■ 

^' 

George  C.  Ludlow. 


166  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

influence  of  Senator  Garret  A.  Hobart,  of  Passaic,  to  the  lot  of 
whom,  as  the  new  Chairman  of  the  Republican  State  Com- 
mittee, the  conduct  of  Mr.  Potts'  canvass  fell.  The  better  the 
influences  that  led  up  to  the  nomination  were  understood,  the 
clearer  it  seemed  to  be  that  the  corporations  of  the  State  had 
massed  themselves  for  a  contest  with  the  people. 

It  was  a  powerful  combination,  but  the  time  was  inopportune. 
A  deep-seated  dissatisfaction  with  the  exemption  of  the  rail- 
roads from  the  payment  of  the  tax  burdens  imposed  upon  indi- 
viduals, which  developed  itself  with  tremendous  force  right 
afterwards,  prevailed  throughout  the  State.  It  was  particularly 
strong  in  Hudson  county,  where  vast  areas  of  railroad  property 
were  withdrawn  from  the  taxable  assets  and  the  cost  of  main- 
taining the  local  governments  which  mainly  protected  these 
railroad  possessions  fell  almost  entirely  upon  the  individual  tax- 
payers. Senator  Abbett  had  made  effective  bids  for  popularity^ 
by  demanding  the  passage  of  an  act  that  should  tax  the  railroad' 
and  the  citizen  alike,  and  the  combination  of  the  railroads  in 
behalf  of  a  Republican  candidate  pointed  him  out  as  the  logical 
candidate  to  lead  a  Democratic  fight  against  these  overgrown 
monopolies,  with  equal  taxation  for  the  battle  cry. 

But  Mr.  Abbett  had  become  singularly  indifferent  about 
public  affairs,  and  he  could  not  be  persuaded  to  arouse  himself 
from  his  apathy.  If  Mrs.  Abbett's  ambition  had  spurred  him 
to  the  struggle  he  had  made  for  the  Governorship  in  1877,  her 
death  since  that  memorable  convention  had  robbed  him  of  his 
inspiration.  Such  was  the  strength  of  the  public  sentiment  that 
favored  him,  however,  that  there  was  yet  a  possibility  that  his 
name  would  be  put  at  the  head  of  the  ticket  in  spite  of  himself, 
and  those  who  were  ambitious  for  the  nomination  themselves 
persuaded  him,  while  the  canvass  was  in  its  formative  state,  to 
publish  a  formal  letter  of  declination.  At  the  time  he  penned 
it  he  had  no  suspicion  that  his  arch  enemy,  ex- Congressman 
Orestes  Cleveland,  would  step  into  the  shoes  he  had  just  cast 
aside.  Mr.  Cleveland,  however,  skillfully  nursed  the  notion  that, 
as  the  issue  was  of  Hudson  origin,  it  was  right  that  a  Hudson  man 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         I(j7 

should  stand  for  it,  and,  the  moment  Abbett  stepped  out,  stepped 
in  himself  as  Hudson's  candidate  before  the  convention. 

It  was  at  first  suspected  that  his  candidacy  was  born  of  the 
idea  that  Abbett  would  yet  step  forward  for  the  favor  of  the 
Hudson  delegation,  and  that  his  sole  purpose  was  to  weaken 
Abbett  in  convention  by  dividing  his  own  county's  strength 
with  him,  Ex-Senator  Abbett  was  of  those  who  accepted  this 
explanation,  and  as  he  had  no  idea  of  being  a  candidate  he  paid 
little  attention  to  the  rumors  that  connected  his  neighbor's  name 
with  the  nomination. 

When  the  time  for  the  selection  of  the  delegates  to  the  State 
Convention  arrived,  however,  Cleveland  spent  money  lavishly 
at  the  polls  all  over  the  State,  and  Mr.  Abbett's  friends  opened 
their  eyes  to  the  fact  that  he  was  in  earnest  quest  of  the  con- 
vention's favor.  Mr.  Cleveland  had  let  no  grass  grow  under 
his  feet,  and  a  large  majority  of  the  men  chosen  to  sit  in  the 
convention  were  committed  to  his  support. 

Mr.  Cleveland  started  in  with  the  idea  that  their  fear  of 
Abbett's  possible  nomination  would  drive  the  State  House  man- 
agers to  his  aid.  He  was  thunderstruck  when  he  learned  that, 
because  of  the  bitterness  born  of  his  opposition  to  Bedle  in  the 
Parker  convention,  they  refused  to  entertain  any  proposition 
from  him.  Randolph  was  weakly  inclined  to  him,  but  Se3retary 
Kelsey  was  bitterly  against  him,  and  finally  took  Randolph  with 
him.  Undeterred,  however,  Mr.  Cleveland  decided  to  make  his 
fight. 

The  time  fixed  for  the  assembling  of  the  delegates  was  Sep- 
tember 1st.  Excited  politicians  poured  into  Trenton  from  all 
parts  of  the  State  the  night  before.  It  had  become  noised  abroad 
that  the  State  House  regime  had  decided  to  defeat  Cleveland  at 
whatever  outlay,  but  with  whom  no  one  was  able  to  guess. 
They  found  a  strong  ally,  for  the  nonce,  in  Allan  L.  McDer- 
mott,  then  a  fresh-faced  young  Jersey  City  lawyer,  but  since  one 
of  the  foremost  of  Democratic  leaders.  The  son  of  poet  Hugh 
F.  McDermott,  he  had  been  typesetter,  reporter  and  law  student. 
Fate  threw  him  across  Leon  Abbett's  path,  and,  with  his  intui- 
tive knowledge  of  men,  Abbett  realized  the  moment  he  met  him 


168  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

that  he  was  a  young  man  of  exceptional  individuality  and  force. 
He  took  him  into  his  law  office,  and  it  was  on  his  certificate  that 
Mr.  McDermott  was  admitted  to  the  bar.  All  through  Mr. 
Abbett's  life  he  was  his  most  devoted,  as  he  was  his  most  able, 
lieutenant,  and  any  thrust  at  his  patron  was  sure  to  bring  Mr. 
McDermott  to  the  front  as  his  champion.  The  possibility  of 
Mr.  Cleveland's  nomination  by  this  convention  of  1880  excited 
McDermott  only  less  than  it  did  Abbett  himself,  and  in  the 
hope  of  foiling  him  he  had  taken  it  upon  himself  to  solicit  Joel 
Parker  to  stand  for  the  nomination,  but  the  old  veteran  earn- 
estly begged  to  be  excused  from  assuming  the  burdens  of  the 
Governorship  again. 

Andrew  Albright,  a  Newark  manufacturer  with  a  vaulting 
ambition,  tried  to  argue  Mr.  McDermott  into  aiding  him  when 
Joel  Parker  refused.  At  the  recent  annual  fair  of  the  State 
Agricultural  Society  he  had  been  permitted  to  hold  an  umbrella 
over  Abbett's  head  to  shield  him  from  the  heat  of  the  sun,  in  front 
of  the  President's -tent  on  the  grounds  at  Waverly,  and,  as  people 
naturally  asked  who  he  was,  he  felt  that  he  had  got  sufficiently 
into  politics  to  entertain  the  idea  of  being  a  Governor.  Neither 
Abbett  nor  McDermott  could  be  induced  to  share  the  notion 
with  him,  and  he  relied  upon  John  Seymour,  a  well-known 
Newark  Democrat,  to  conduct  his  canvass  for  him,  while 
they  sought  more  promising  alliances  for  Mr.  Cleveland's 
overthrow. 

It  was  visible  to  the  most  casual  observer  on  the  eve  of  the 
convention  that  Mr.  Cleveland  was  easily  the  master  of  the 
situation,  and  the  batteries  of  all  the  smaller  forces  were  turned 
upon  him.  He  was  bitterly  attacked,  and  his  public  record  torn 
to  pieces.  The  hotel  desks  were  littered  with  circulars  exploiting 
the  Boulevard  scheme  on  account  of  which  he  had  raised  his 
hand  against  Bedle,  and  laying  bare  the  details  of  the  more 
recent  attempt  to  force  the  county  into  the  purchase  of  a  piece 
of  his  estate  as  a  site  for  a  new  court  house — a  transaction  that 
was  covered  with  jobbery  from  beginning  to  end.  And  alto- 
gether the  fight  against  him  was  as  acrimonious  and  as  uncom- 
promising as  it  was  possible  for  it  to  be. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  169 

While  the  contending  forces  were  negotiating  for  delegations, 
and  the  lobbies  were  filled  with  log-rolling  and  button-holing 
crowds,  all  working  and  pulling  and  hauling  for  their  own 
favorites,  the  State  Committee  was  called  together  in  the  Trenton 
House  to  select  a  Chairman  for  the  morning's  convention.  The 
State  Committee  was  wholly  in  control  of  the  State  House 
cotierie,  and  the  crowds  that  hung  around  the  door  of  the  room 
in  which  it  met  were  surprised  to  see  Leon  Abbett  admitted 
to  its  secret  conference.  If  there  was  a  man  in  the  State  against 
whom  everybody  would  have  expected  to  see  the  doors  closed  it 
was  he ;  and  the  throngs  around  the  hotel  spent  the  evening  in 
efforts  to  guess  what  his  welcome  by  these  old-time  antagonists 
of  his  could  mean.  At  midnight  they  were  treated  to  a  new 
sensation  in  the  announcement  that  he  had  been  chosen  to  preside 
over  Mr.  Cleveland's  convention.  Only  those  who  had  seen 
Mr.  Abbett  dominate  and  overpower  and  bulldoze  the  Demo- 
cratic conventions  in  Hudson  from  the  chairman's  desk  were 
able  to  realize  what  an  awful  obstruction  the  State  Committee 
had  thrown  in  the  way  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  success. 

Mr.  Abbett  had  gone  to  Trenton  that  night  to  even  up  scores 
with  Mr.  Cleveland.  He  had  not  forgotten  the  spectacular 
■defeat  which  the  Hudson  Congressman  had  arranged  for  him  in 
1877,  and  he  had  actually  gone  down  on  his  knees  to  his 
old  enemies  of  the  State  House  Ring  to  crave  the  oppor- 
tunity to  put  his  heel  on  Mr.  Cleveland's  neck  from  the  plat- 
form of  Taylor  Hall.  Mr.  Kelsey  and  the  rest  were  disposed 
to  mistrust  him.  They  suspected  that  it  was  only  a  scheme  of 
his  to  secure  his  own  nomination,  and  they  made  him  vow  that 
if  it  were  tendered  to  him  he  would  peremptorily  decline  it. 
Assured,  when  he  had  given  them  these  pledges,  that  revenge 
rather  than  ambition  had  sent  him  to  their  conference,  they 
brought  Senator  Ludlow  into  the  room  and  confided  to  him 
their  purpose  of  making  him  the  candidate. 

Ludlow  had  not,  however,  been  the  first  choice  of  all  of  the 
big  factors  among  the  State  House  coterie.  During  the  summer 
preceding  the  convention,  Secretary  of  State  Kelsey,  Clerk  in 
Chancery  Little,  ex-Governor  Bedle,  ex-Congressman  Alvah  A. 


170 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


Clark  and  ex- United  States  Senator  John  P.  Stockton,  meeting 
casually  at  Saratoga,  had  discussed  the  gubernatorial  situation, 
and,  with  the  exception  of  Little,  were  rather  disposed  to  look 
upon  Ludlow  as  the  most  available  of  the  willing  candidates. 
Mr.  Ludlow  was  a  stout  gentleman,  of  severe  dignity,  with 
massive  face  and  Websterian  brow,  who  had  represented  Mid- 
dlesex county  in  the  State  Senate  with  unusual  acceptability, 

and  he  was  regarded 
as  one  whose  record 
would  commend 
him  to  the  suffrag- 
ists of  the  State.  To 
the  surprise  of  all 
the  conferees,  Mr. 
Little  swooped 
down  on  Ludlow, 
when  his  name  was 
proposed,  like  a 
thousand  of  brick. 
Mr.  Little  had  a 
personal  grievance 
against  him.  While 
in  the  Senate,  Lud- 
low had  voted  for 
an  act  that  made  it 
impossible  for  Mr. 
Little  to  collect 
from  the  lawyers  of 
the  State,  whom  he 
had  trusted  for 
Chancery  fees,about 
$30,000  of  out- 
standing accounts. 
Ludlow  was,  therefore,  the  last  man  in  the  State  to  whose  ad- 
vancement the  tall  Chancery  Clerk  was  willing  to  lend  a  willing 
ear.  His  colleagues  had  set  their  hearts  upon  him,  however, 
and  they  spent  the  rest  of  the  time,  right  up  to  the  hour  of  this 


Orestes  Cleveland. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  171 

meeting  of  the  State  Committee,  in  bringing  him  to  their  way 
of  thinking.  He  finally  yielded,  and  when  Mr.  Ludlow  was 
led  into  the  State  Committee  room,  to  be  hailed  as  the  party's 
nominee  of  the  morrow,  he  had  become  the  undivided  choice  of 
all  the  State  House  crowd.  Enemy  of  theirs,  as  he  was,  Senator 
Abbett  received  him  as  graciously  as  they,  and  pledged  his  best 
efforts  to  carry  him  triumphantly  through  the  convention. 

Mr.  Cleveland  was  discomfited  for  a  moment  when  he  heard 
that  Mr.  Abbett  was  to  preside  over  the  convention,  but  he 
knew  that  he  had  secured  a  vast  majority  of  the  delegates,  and 
he  declared  with  confident  emphasis,  that  Abbett  nor  anyone 
else  could  stand  in  his  way. 

When  Chairman  Shippen,  of  the  State  Committee,  called  for 
order  in  Taylor  Opera  House,  at  noon  the  next  day,  there  was 
a  band  in  the  gallery ;  Kelsey  and  Little  were  smiling  radiantly 
in  one  of  the  private  boxes  off  the  proscenium,  and  Abbett,  with 
jaws  of  iron,  stood  in  the  flies  awaiting  the  call  to  the  slaughter 
of  the  day.  Mr.  Shippen  had  hardly  announced  him  as  the 
State  Committee's  choice  for  temporary  Chairman,  before  great 
big  George  Thompson  set  up  a  hoarse  shout  for  "  three  cheers 
for  Leon  Abbett ! "  and  the  Hudson  Senator  received  a  noisy 
ovation  as  he  stepped  to  the  front.  Even  before  he  had  com- 
pleted his  pretty  little  speech  of  thanks,  the  Essex  delegates  set 
up  a  shout  from  one  of  the  upper  galleries  that  their  seats  had 
been  occupied  by  strangers.  Mr.  Abbett  remembered  what  the 
claquers  and  tooters  had  done  for  him  in  the  McClellan  conven- 
vention,  and  he  suspected  that  Mr.  Cleveland  had  arranged  to 
employ  the  same  agency  of  enthusiasm  again  to  advance  his 
own  cause. 

"So  long  as  I  am  Chairman  of  this  convention,"  he  shouted, 
slamming  his  cane  down  on  the  table,  "  delegates  alone  shall 
have  seats." 

While  the  noisy  tussle  between  the  delegates  and  the  intruders 
was  going  on,  Walter  W.  Acton,  of  Salem^  and  George  R.  Gray, 
of  Essex,  were  made  the  temporary  Secretaries.  The  morning 
hour  was  spent  in  the  usual  preliminaries,  and  after  dinner, 
when   the  delegates  re-assembled  for  one  of  the  noisiest  con- 


172  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

ventions  ever  held  in  the  State,  it  was  announced  that  Mr. 
Abbett  would  serve  as  permanent  Chairman  through  to  the 
end  and  that  the  two  temporary  Secretaries  would  stay  at  their 
desks. 

Almost  immediately  the  delegates  broke  into  tumult  over  the 
enforcement  of  the  unit  rule.  It  was  said  that  Mr.  Cleveland 
had  but  a  majority  of  the  votes  of  some  of  the  county  delega- 
tions and  that  the  enforcement  of  a  rule  requiring  each  county 
to  vote  as  a  unit  was  necessary  to  his  triumph.  The  majority  of 
the  delegation  from  Hudson  favored  his  candidacy,  but  there 
were  some  who  were  against  him — a  mere  handful,  whose  voices 
could  not  be  heard  in  convention  if  the  preference  of  the  ma- 
jority was  to  be  announced  as  the  preference  of  all.  Colonel 
John  I.  McAnerny,  a  smooth-tongued  member  of  the  delegation, 
had  taken  it  upon  himself  to  espouse  the  nomination  of  ex- 
Congressman  A.  A.  Hardenbergh,  who,  personally,  was  probably 
one  of  the  most  popular  men  Hudson  county  ever  knew;  and,  so 
that  Hardenbergh's  name  might  be  presented  to  the  convention 
by  his  friends  in  the  delegation,  the  Colonel  made  war  on  the 
unit  rule  and  insisted  that  the  vote  of  each  delegate  be  separately 
tallied.  Allan  L.  McDermott  was  not  slow  to  see  the  advantage 
of  making  a  split  in  Cleveland's  home  delegation,  and  he  lent 
his  voice  to  Colonel  McAnerny's  assistance  and  even  brought 
the  matter  to  the  notice  of  the  open  convention.  Mr.  Cleve- 
land's managers  saw  that  if  McDermott  prevailed  the  Cleveland 
cause  would  lose  many  votes  in  many  counties,  and,  of  course, 
they  made  a  bitter  fight  against  him. 

Chairman  Abbett  was  not  going  to  lose  the  advantage  oflPered 
by  McDermott's  contention,  and,  amid  a  howl  of  protests,  he 
declared  that  the  preference  of  each  delegate  should  be  tallied, 
and  when  the  angry  Cleveland  men  attempted  to  appeal  from 
his  decision,  refused  to  entertain  it.  Bedlam  broke  loose  in  the 
Hudson  gallery,  and  the  Cleveland  contingent  on  the  floor 
answered  with  a  sympathetic  tumult ;  but  Abbett  stood  proof 
.  against  all  of  their  raging,  and  at  one  time,  to  emphasize  the 
rule  of  individual  action,  held  the  whole  shouting  hall  at  bay 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  173 

for  ten  minutes  while  he  pulled  a  single  Ludlow  vote  from  the 
gallery. 

One  wave  of  excitement  succeeded  another  till  at  last  the  con- 
vention reached  the  point  of  presenting  the  names  of  the  can- 
didates. Atlantic  led  off  with  that  of  Andrew  Albright.  Ber- 
gen wheeled  into  line  for  Hardenbergh,  who  had  first  seen  the 
light  of  day  on  her  soil.  Hudson  named  Cleveland,  Stockton, 
William  W.  Shippen,  the  President  of  the  Hoboken  Land  and 
Improvement  Co.,  and  Abbett.  Edward  F.  McDonald  made 
the  formal  presentation  of  Cleveland's  name  on  her  behalf,  and 
Colonel  McAnerny  put  Hardenbergh  before  the  delegates.  Hun- 
terdon cast  her  votes  for  John  T.  Bird.  Middlesex,  through 
Delegate  Paterson,  declared  for  Ludlow,  and  Morris,  through 
Holloway  W.  Hunt,  for  Cutler.  McDermott  drew  mingled 
hisses  and  applause  by  making  a  fiery  protest  on  behalf,  as  he 
said,  of  the  Hudson  county  taxpayers  against  Cleveland's  nomi- 
nation, and  his  speech  was  so  rasping  and  bitter  that  Joseph  L. 
Naar,  editor  of  the  Trenton  "  True  American,"  who  was  a  dele- 
gate from  Mercer,  made  the  point  of  order  that  the  business  in 
hand  was  the  nomination,  and  not  the  defamation,  of  candidates. 
McDermott  rode  roughshod  over  him,  and  went  on  as  though 
he  had  not  spoken  till  he  put  John  P.  Stockton — "a  pure 
man,  pure  as  God  Almighty  created  the  soul  of  an  infant " — in 
nomination. 

No  words  can  begin  to  describe  the  tumult  that  had  been 
ceaselessly  kept  up  through  all  these  proceedings.  Dozens  of 
men  were  shouting  like  madmen  all  over  the  hall,  and  the  crowd 
would  respond  with  alternate  hisses  and  cheers  at  every  point 
they  made.  The  clamor  reached  its  height  when  William 
McAdoo,  probably  the  most  magnetic  orator  there  was  in  the 
Hudson  delegation,  sprang  to  a  bench  to  say  that  the  only  way  to 
end  the  uproar  was  to  put  Leon  Abbett  in  nomination  ;  whereat 
big  George  Thompson  started  down  the  aisle,  swinging  his  cane 
over  his  head  and  shouting  for  cheers  for  Abbett  till  he  was  at 
the  foot  of  the  platform.  Delegates  streamed  from  the  benches 
in  his  wake,  the  galleries  were  half  emptied,  and  a  thousand- 
shouting  and  roaring  men  stormed  the  platform. 


174  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 


"Abbett!  Abbett!  give  us  Abbett!"  they  cried  till  the 
perspiration  rolled  down  their  faces.  But  he  stood  like  a  statue 
of  marble  before  them.  There  was  a  cold  glare  in  his  eye,  and 
his  jaw  was  set  with  a  fierce  determination.  He  waited,  in  the 
hope  that  the  clamor  would  subside  so  that  he  could  be  heard. 
The  roaring  delegates  divined  what  he  had  to  say,  and  as  often 
as  he  moved  his  lips  drowned  his  voice  in  a  fresh  tumult.  He 
hammered  the  desk  in  vain  for  order,  and  convinced,  finally, 
that  even  his  stentorian  voice  could  not  make  his  words  heard, 
answered  their  mad  yells  in  pantomime.  When  the  throng  saw 
him  shake  his  head  "  no,"  they  broke  into  a  fresh  uproar.  He 
waved  them  off  with  his  hand,  and  appealed  by  a  motion  for 
silence. 

"  You  must  listen  to  me,"  he  finally  managed  to  say.  "  To 
say  that  I  am  insensible  to  this  demonstration  would  be  to  say 
what  is  not  true.  But  I  cannot  stand  as  a  candidate  and  be  an 
honorable  man  after  my  letter  of  declination  and  while  I  am 
acting  here  as  Chairman  of  this  convention." 

"  Resign,  then ! "  the  crowd  chorused  back,  while  Abbett 
went  on  to  say  that,  for  one,  he  would  battle  night  and  day  for 
the  nominee  of  this  convention. 

"  But,"  he  concluded,  in  a  voice  that  now  rang  through  the 
hall,  "  I  cannot  be  that  nominee." 

The  completion  of  the  roll-call  proceeded  amid  indescribable 
confusion.  Delegates  all  over  the  hall,  armed  with  pencil  and 
paper,  kept  tallies  of  the  votes  as  they  were  announced.  These 
showed  that  two-thirds  of  all  the  ballots  had  been  cast  for 
Cleveland,  and  a  fresh  tempest  of  cheers  came  from  his  friends 
on  the  floor.  Nothing  now  remained  but  to  make  formal  an- 
nouncement of  Mr.  Cleveland's  nomination,  but  Abbett  had 
gone  to  the  chair  for  the  single  purpose  of  seeing  that  that  an- 
nouncement was  not  made,  and  he  met  the  angry  demands  of 
the  Cleveland  henchmen  for  it  with  freezing  silence. 

"Announce  the  result !  announce  the  result !  " 

The  call  leaped  from  pit  to  balcony,  and  from  the  balcony  to 
the  rafters  under  the  roof,  but  still  as  impassive  as  a  figure  of  iron 
stood  the  Chairman,  with  hands  folded  before  him,  and  a  stare  of 


MODE>RN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  176 


resolute  unconcern  in  his  eyes.  The  vast  throng  became  deliri- 
ous with  excitement. 

" Have  the  Secretaries  figured  up  the  result? "  he  asked,  in  a 
hard,  metallic  voice,  when  there  was  a  lull,  as  he  turned  his  face 
to  the  table  where  the  scribes  of  the  convention  sat.  Only  those 
immediately  around  him  on  the  platform  heard  one  of  the  record- 
keepers  respond  with  a  "  yes."  The  Chairman  summoned  his 
iron  nerve  as  he  turned  to  contort  the  information  into  the  an- 
nouncement that  "the  Secretaries  have  found  an  error  in  the 
tally."  A  chorus  of  protesting  and  derisive  "  Oh's  !  "  greeted 
him,  and  another  awful  din  followed.  But  the  Chairman  was 
firm,  and  insisted  that  another  ballot  should  be  taken. 

Then,  amid  the  wildest  of  tumults,  Allan  McDermott  sprang 
to  his  feet  to  move  that  Abbett's  declination  be  disregarded, 
and  that  the  convention  proceed  to  nominate  him  anyway. 
George  Thompson  swung  his  cane  over  his  head  down  the  aisle 
again,  and  for  the  second  time  hundreds  of  frenzied  men  were 
at  Abbett's  feet,  praying  him  to  consent.  In  other  parts  of 
the  hall  the  Cleveland  claquers  set  up  a  counter  din  for 
the  announcement  of  Cleveland's  nomination.  Men  leaped  to 
their  benches  to  shout  protests,  and  others  to  drown  their 
shouts.  The  bedlam  that  surrounded  them  made  their  ravings 
voiceless,  and  they  seemed  like  mimic  orators.  Scores  shook 
their  clenched  fists  above  the  heads  around  them  against  un- 
seen antagonists  in  pantomime  delirium.  Only  the  awful  roar 
of  a  thousand  discordant  voices,  with  no  sound  articulate — 
like  the  roar  of  a  tempest-swept  sea — filled  the  hall.  And 
still  the  imperturbed  Chairman  looked  on  with  a  chilly  counte- 
nance, nor  moved  a  muscle  to  quell  the  riot.  He  knew  that  the 
indignant  and  angry  crowd,  the  jostling  and  yelling  crowd,  the 
hustling  and  pulling  and  hauling  crowd,  must  tire  in  the  pur- 
suit of  their  phantom  candidate,  and  that  allowed  to  run  the 
race  unobstructed  they  must  sooner  or  later  come  to  a  panting 
halt. 

And  so  it  was.  Stout  lungs  grew  weak  and  weaker;  stal- 
wart arms,  that  had  sawed  the  air  with  frenzied  energy,  fell 
limp ;  the  host  at  his  feet  gasped  for  breath ;  their  fury  and 


176  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

enthusiasm  had  spent  themselves  by  degrees.  And  with  the 
lull  came  his  voice  declaring  for  the  second  time  that  he  could 
not  be  a  candidate  and  that  the  ballot  must  be  taken  again. 

Through  four  ballots  this  scene  was  repeated.  The  conven- 
tion lost  its  head  for  the  third  time,  while  he  drove  back  another 
Cleveland  wave,  and  clustered  around  the  platform  with  noisy 
demands  that  he  become  the  candidate.  On  the  fourth  ballot 
one  of  the  delegations  broke  to  Ludlow.  The  Cleveland  retainers 
in  the  Hudson  delegation  had  spent  all  their  energies  to  over- 
come the  iron  will  of  the  Chairman,  and  they  saw  that  their 
efforts  were  to  be  in  vain.  In  very  despair  they  surrendered  to 
him,  and  when  the  Chairman  announced  that  Cleveland's  own 
county  cast  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  of  her  one  hundred 
and  seventy  votes  for  the  Middlesex  Senator,  Mr.  Cleveland's 
friends  all  over  the  hall  accepted  it  as  the  inglorious  end  of 
their  battle,  and  the  delegations  from  all  the  counties  struggled 
for  the  first  opportunity  to  consummate  Ludlow's  nomination. 
With  an  air  of  triumph,  Mr.  Abbett  finally  announced  that  the 
tally  of  the  clerks  showed  a  vast  majority  for  Ludlow,  and 
declared  him  to  be  the  nominee  of  the  Democratic  party  for 
Governor  of  New  Jersey.  Some  of  the  implacables  in  the 
Essex  delegation  refused  to  accept  the  decision,  and  met  the 
usual  motion  that  the  nomination  be  made  unanimous  with 
hisses,  and  cheers  for  Frederic  A.  Potts. 

The  excitements  that  marked  the  progress  of  the  campaign 
were  as  great  as  those  that  had  attended  its  opening.  It  was 
singularly  complicated  on  both  sides  by  corporation  surround- 
ings, while  the  anti-monopoly  sentiment  was  gathering  strength 
at  every  meeting.  Mr.  Potts  was  recognized  as  the  product  of 
a  railroad  alliance  for  the  control  of  the  State.  That  Ludlow 
himself  was  private  counsel  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  in 
New  Brunswick  was  not  as  generally  known,  but  the  belief  that 
the  nomination  of  one  of  its  own  attorneys  would  make  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  folks  lukewarm  in  their  support  of 
Potts  was  doubtless  the  secret  inspiration  of  the  movement  that 
forced  him  on  the  Democratic  convention. 

The  Republican  State  Committee  never  made  such  a  battle  for 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         177 


the  victory  as  it  made  that  year.    Senator  Hobart,  of  Passaic,  wae- 
its  leader,  and  as  the  battle  progressed  he  displayed  those  quali- 
ties of  political  generalship  which  later  led  to  his  selection  as 
the  Vice  Chairman  of  the  National  Republican  Committee  and 
the  practical  director  of  one  of  the  most  exciting  of  subsequent 
national  campaigns.     He  had  every  district  in  the  State  can- 
vassed and  the  preference  of  every  voter  as  between  the  two- 
candidates  carefully  ascertained.     The  results  of  these  canvasser 
were  listed  fully,  and  on  the  eve  of  the  decisive  engagement 
Mr.  Hobart  and  his  colleagues  knew  just  how  many  in  each 
district  and  in  each  county  could  be  depended  upon  to  vote  for 
Potts,  how  many  for  Ludlow,  and  who  were  doubtful.     Each . 
one  of  the  doubtful  men  was  personally  solicited  at  his  home  by. 
an  agent  of  the  committee,  and  the  weak-kneed  and  independent 
Democrats  were  put  under  pressure.    The  Committee  discovered 
that  the  anti- monopoly  sentiment  which  was  manifesting  itself 
so  vigorously  in  Jersey  City,  was  operating  more  or  less  against 
its  candidate  in  all  parts  of  the  State,  but  its  method  of  urging^ 
the  voters  was  so  close  and  far-reaching  that  this  objection  to 
him  was  largely  overcome.     And  a  night  or  two  before  election 
the  members  of  the  Committee  were  more  than  jubilant  over  the 
anticipated  certainty  of  making  Mr.  Potts  Governor  of  the 
State.     In  these  calculations  the  assumption  was  that  the  various 
railroad  corporations  would  put  their  employes  under  pressure 
to  cast  their  ballots  for  Potts,  whatever  their  political  or  per- 
sonal predilections  might  have  been.     And  the  Committee-men 
were  consequently  thrown  into  a  state  of  alarm  when,  on  the 
afternoon  preceding  election  day,  they  learned  that  Secretary  of 
State  Henry  C.  Kelsey  had  just  come  away  from  a  long  confer- 
ence with  Andrew  J.  Cassatt,  at  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  oflBces 
in  Philadelphia,  smiling  all  over  his  face.     The  particular  big- 
nificance  of  this  incident  lay  in  the  fact  that  Mr.  Kelsey  was 
the  man  who  had  been  chiefly  responsible  for  Senator  Ludlow's, 
nomination,  and  that  Mr.  Cassatt  was  the  working  factor  among^, 
the  ofiBcials  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company. 

Those  who  were  in  position  to  observe  the  drift  of  the  can- 
vass on  election  day  thought  that  they  saw  signs  that  the  cam- 

12 


178  MODERN   BA.TTLE8  OF  TRENTON. 

paign  had  resolved  itself  into  a  contest  for  the  supremacy 
between  the  two  rival  railroad  corporations  of  the  State,  and 
that  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  had  rather  repented  of  its  bar- 
gain to  aid  one  of  the  chiefs  of  the  Jersey  Central  to  a  potential 
State  office  and  was  at  last  disposed  to  assist  its  own  attorney 
to  the  place.  Some  gentlemen  there  are  who  say  that  an  order 
was  given  along  the  line  of  the  Jersey  Central  for  all  its  men  in 
Ocean  county,  at  least,  to  vote  for  Potts  and  for  Rufus  Blodgett, 
the  Superintendent  of  the  Jersey  Southern  Railroad,  one  of  its 
branches,  who  stood  there  in  that  campaign  as  the  Democractic 
candidate  for  State  Senator.  The  same  reliable  authority  asserts 
that  soon  after  Mr.  Kelsey  left  Mr.  Cassatt's  office,  an  order  was 
sent  out  from  the  Philadelphia  headquarters  of  the  Pennsylva- 
nia Railroad,  directing  all  the  employes  of  the  company  to  cast 
their  ballots  for  Mr.  Ludlow.  It  was  said,  indeed,  after  the 
campaign  was  finished,  that  a  Pennsylvania  Railroad  engineer 
who  had  defied  the  order  and  voted  for  Potts,  was  unseated 
from  his  locomotive. 

The  two  State  Committees  had  wires  run  into  their  headquar- 
ters rooms  at  Taylor's  Hotel,  in  Jersey  City,  for  the  transmis- 
sion of  the  returns ;  and  the  figures,  as  they  came  pouring  in 
from  all  over  the  State,  on  election  night,  were  watched,  com- 
pared and  tabulated  with  feverish  interest  by  hundreds  of  par- 
tisans. It  was  a  close  race  between  the  two  candidates,  with 
Potts  now  a  few  votes  ahead,  and  now  Ludlow  a  bit  in  the  lead  ; 
and  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  result  was  so  uncertain 
that  each  of  the  State  Committees  claimed  that  the  returns  from 
the  few  precincts  yet  to  be  heard  from  would  give  its  man  the 
victory.  Some  of  these  lagging  precincts  were  in  Middlesex 
county ;  and  the  famous  Horse- shoe  Democratic  district,  in  Jersey 
City,  also  seemed  to  be  purposely  holding  its  returns  back.  At 
five  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  figures  from  two  or  three  of  the 
precincts  were  still  inaccessible,  and  the  tide- watchers  were  forced 
to  go  to  their  rest  without  knowing  which  side  had  won. 

At  noon  the  next  day  the  last  of  the  ballot-boxes  was  placed 
in  official  custody,  and  on  the  face  of  all  the  figures.  Senator 
Ludlow  had  a  majority  of  251.     The  official  count  of  the  vote 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  179 

increased  this  majority  to  651.     That  was  the  closest  shave  the 
Democratic  party  had  ever  had  in  the  State. 

Suspicions  were  very  generally  entertained  among  the  Repub- 
lican workers  that  the  tide  of  the  battle  had  been  turned  by 
fraud,  and,  as  usual  when  fraud  was  suspected,  the  Horse-shoe 
district  was  put  under  surveillance.  Singularly  enough,  a 
heated  controversy,  involving  the  integrity  of  the  vote  there, 
sprang  up  between  Patrick  Sheeran  and  Terrence  J.  McDonald, 
who  had  run  for  Assembly  in  the  district.  The  district  was 
so  overwhelmingly  Democratic  that  no  Republican  ever  thought 
it  worth  the  while  to  fight  for  it,  and  both  of  these  candidates 
were  Democrats.  The  local  Board  of  Canvassers  awarded  the 
certificate  of  election  to  McDonald,  and  Sheeran  proposed  to 
ask  the  court  for  a  recount  of  the  vote.  The  fear  that  some 
irregularities  aiFecting  the  gubernatorial  vote  might  be  revealed 
by  a  re-opening  of  the  boxes  for  a  recount  of  the  Asgembly 
vote,  led  the  Democratic  leaders  of  the  State  to  use  their  influ- 
ence with  Mr.  Sheeran  to  abstain  from  the  contest,  and  it  was 
never  undertaken.  The  incident  led  to  a  conference  among  Mr, 
Potts'  friends ;  and  ex-Secretary  George  M.  Robeson,  Committee 
Secretary  John  Y.  Foster  and  Chairman  Hobart  were  a  unit  in 
advising  him  to  commence  a  contest  before  the  Senate  against 
Ludlow's  occupation  of  the  office.  Mr.  Potts  was  a  singularly 
sensitive  and  modest  man,  and  he  shrank  from  the  ordeal.  He 
always  believed,  however,  that  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  lead- 
ers in  the  State  went  back  on  the  engagements  that  had  tempted 
him  to  accept  the  nomination,  and  for  weeks  after  the  election  a 
warm  newspaper  controversy  was  waged  on  the  point.  It  was 
answered  for  the  railroad  that  the  vote  in  the  counties  through 
which  the  Pennsylvania  railroad  runs  indicated  that  they  were 
not  behind  the  other  counties  in  their  fealty  to  the  Republican 
candidate.  In  Burlington,  Potts  ran  33  ahead  of  his  ticket ; 
in  Camden,  59  ;  in  Essex,  347  ;  in  Hudson,  450  ;  in  Hunterdon, 
269  ;  while  in  the  Central  Railroad  county  of  Monmouth  he  was 
49  behind,  and  in  Ocean,  34. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Which    Contains    Some  Startling    Figures    Concerning    Eailroai>. 

Exemptions,  and  shows  how  General  Sewell's  Election 

to  the  United  States  Senate  may  have  had 

some  Relation  to  the  Movement 

FOR  Equal  Taxation. 


/he  election  that  had  so  narrowly  escaped  giving  the 
State  a  Republican  Governor,  sent  to  Trenton,  in 
January,  1881,  a  Legislature  that  was  Republican  in 
both  branches,  and  the  legislative  cohorts  started  in 
hot  pursuit  of  Mr.  Kelsey  for  having,  at  the  dawn  of  victory, 
spoiled  their  gubernatorial  expectations.  Mr.  Kelsey's  term  aa 
Secretary  of  State  was  on  the  point  of  expiring  and  the  Senate 
held  his  renomination,  which  was  submitted  by  Governor  Lud- 
low, in  the  Judiciary  Committee  for  weeks  and  then  rejected  it. 
The  Governor  abstained  from  submitting  a  new  name,  and,  after 
the  Legislature  had  gone  home  for  the  year,  he  re-appointed 
Mr.  Kelsey  ad  interim,  and  the  next  Senate  confirmed  him  for 
a  new  full  term. 

Senator  Garret  A.  Hobart,  of  Paterson,  having  won  his  spurs 
in  the  campaign,  was  chosen  by  acclaim  to  preside  over  the 
Senate  during  the  session,  and  Harrison  Van  Duyne,  of  Essex, 
was  promoted  to  the  Speakership  of  the  Assembly.  The  notable 
event  of  the  session  was  the  displacement  of  United  States 
Senator  Randolph  by  a  Republican  successor.  A  half  score  oi 
ambitious  Republicans  had  been  tempted  to  list  themselves  as 
candidates  for  the  distinction  which  Mr.  Randolph  was  to  lay 
aside  on  the  4th  of  March,  but  General  William  J.  Sewell, 
then  serving  the  county  of  Camden  in  the  State  Senate,  easily 
had  the  call  over  them  all. 

Senator  Gardner,  of  Atlantic,  presided  over  the  Republicans 
(180) 


-'KSh' 

/ 

i 
t 

/■'*'" 

tev. 

i 

|/ife"^' 

W'^ 

William  J   Scwell. 


182  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

of  the  two  Houses  when  they  met  in  a  joint  caucus  in  the 
Assembly  Chamber  to  select  the  candidate  they  were  to  promote 
at  the  joint  meeting  to  be  held  a  day  or  two  later.  On  the  first 
ballot  General  Sewell  had  thirteen  votes;  ex- Secretary  Robeson, 
eleven;  ex- Congressman  George  A.  Halsey,  ten;  Cortlandt 
Parker,  of  Newark,  seven ;  ex-United  States  Consul  Thomas 
H.  Dudley,  of  Camden,  five,  and  ex- Senator  Frelinghuysen, 
three.  On  the  tenth  ballot  Sewell  commanded  twenty-five  votes 
to  Robeson's  twelve,  Halsey's  ten  and  Parker's  two,  and  was 
declared  the  nominee  of  the  caucus.  Two  days  later  he  was 
chosen  by  each  House,  acting  separately,  and  Governor  Ludlow 
issued  his  commission  to  him.  He  retained  his  seat  in  the  State 
Senate,  as  "  the  gentleman  from  Camden,"  till  the  eve  of  the 
day  in  March  when  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  go  to 
"Washington  to  be  sworn  in. 

General  Sewell  had  for  years  been  a  power  in  the  State  Senate. 
He  held  an  admitted  connection  with  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company  in  its  higher  administrative  departments,  but  his  own 
personal  qualities  reinforced  the  influence  which  this  connection 
could  not  but  bring  to  him.  He  had  never  set  himself  up  as  an 
orator  and  he  never  indulged  in  set  speeches.  He  had  a  faculty, 
however,  of  compressing  the  thought  for  columns  of  rhetoric  in 
a  few  sententious  remarks,  and,  expressing  it  admirably,  often 
turned  the  drift  of  debate  by  the  things  he  found  it  possible  to 
say  from  his  seat  within  the  compass  of  five  minutes'  time — as 
when  his  ten- word  argument  that  the  newspapers  were  part  of 
the  educational  system  of  the  State  defeated  a  threatened  move- 
ment for  the  discontinuance  of  the  publication  of  the  session  laws 
in  the  public  prints.  A  certain  hauteur  of  manner  won  him  the 
reputation,  among  the  superficial,  of  being  proud  and  self-satis- 
fied and  overbearing,  but  one  soon  came  to  learn  that  it  was  due 
wholly  to  Jiis  reserve,  and  among  those  whom  he  favored  with 
a  close  acquaintance  he  was  recognized  as  a  hearty  and  genial 
companion,  quite  as  ready  to  give  as  to  receive,  whose  open- 
handed  liberality  to  his  friends  had  once  almost  wrecked  his 
fortunes,  and  one  in  whom  the  sense  of  gratitude  was  not  always 
measured  by  the  expectation  of  favors  to  come.     It  was  easy  to- 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         183 


see,  as  he  marched  to  his  seat,  that  he  had  been  a  soldier,  and  lie 
had,  indeed,  won  his  title  as  the  reward  of  an  active  participa- 
tion in  the  thick  of  the  fight  in  the  days  that  tried  men's  souls. 

It  was  with  pardonable  pride  that  he  said  to  his  fellow- Sena- 
tors, who  suspended  business  to  bid  him  an  impressive  God-speed 
when  he  laid  down  his  functions  in  the  State  Senate,  on  the  eve 
of  the  4th  of  March,  to  take  his  seat  in  the  greater  Senate  at 
Washington,  that  by  his  election  to  the  Senate  he  had  achieved 
the  highest  political  honor  within  the  reach  of  any  foreigner. 
The  Presidency  of  the  Nation  alone  was  higher,  and,  native  of 
Ireland  as  he  was,  he  was  barred  from  even  aspiring  to  that 
distinction.  He  had  not  been  long  among  the  statesmen  who 
control  the  affairs  of  the  nation  in  the  great  spreading  building 
of  white  marble  on  the  brow  of  Capitol  Hill,  before  his  force 
was  recogniz'^d,  and  in  the  parceling  out  of  the  responsible  com- 
mittee places  he  was  treated  with  a  consideration  that  might 
have  made  the  blood  of  older  Senators  tingle  with  pride.  Even 
after  a  turn  in  politics  had  sent  a  Democrat  to  succeed  him  at 
the  end  of  his  term,  he  was  still  the  chosen  companion  of  the 
leading  men  of  the  land,  and  during  President  Harrison's 
administration  no  public  man  exerted  a  more  direct  influence 
upon  administration  policies  and  affdirs. 

In  spite  of  his  admirable  personal  qualities,  the  choice  of 
General  Sewell  by  the  Republican  Legislature,  following  upon 
a  campaign  in  which  the  railroads  had  Itagued  themselves  to  give 
the  State  a  railroad  Governor,  was  not  without  its  influences  on 
Legislative  elections  in  the  fall  (1881)  that  followed.  Both 
were  incidents  that  favored  the  popular  opposition  to  the  con- 
tinued domination  of  the  corporations.  The  particular  point  of 
attack  was  the  relation  of  the  corporations  to  municipal  taxing 
problems.  They  not  only  paid  no  local  taxes,  but  by  absorbing 
into  exempted  properties  large  areas  of  ground  for  railroad  pur- 
poses, they  reduced  the  total  valuations  upon  which  taxes  could 
be  assessed,  and  so  enlarged  the  tax  bills  of  the  individual 
property-holders. 

Speaking  for  Jersey  City,  upon  a  pending  equal  taxation  bill, 
in  the  Legislature  of  1882,  Aseeoablyman  George  H.  Farrier 


184  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

gave  his  colleagues  a  startling  exposition  of  the  size  and  extent 
of  these  exemptions  in  Jersey  City  alone. 

*'  These  giant  railroad  corporations,"  he  said,  "  almost,  but  yet 
not  quite,  beyond  State  control,  are  eating  up  our  substance  and 
threaten  annihilation.  Every  year  more  property  is  taken  and 
disappears  from  our  tax  list.  Large  tracts  of  lands  and  whole 
blocks  of  houses  are  sometimes  taken,  and  we  have  already  lost 
more  than  one-third  of  our  city.  Property  to  the  value  of  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  dollars  is  drawn  into  this  great  corpora- 
tion maelstrom,  only  to  leave  the  burden  of  taxation  so  much 
greater  on  what  is  left.  So  enormous  is  this  constant  depletion, 
that  the  value  of  property  annually  taken  from  our  assessment 
rolls  is  quite  equal  to  the  growth  of  manufactures  and  the  capi- 
tal invested  in  new  buildings.  The  aggregate  of  railroad  prop- 
erty exempt  from  city  tax,  as  returned  in  the  sworn  statements 
of  the  Assessors  to  the  Board  of  Finance  and  Taxation,  is  $19,- 
394,546  !  The  amount  of  railroad  property  in  Jersey  City  now 
•exempt  from  municipal  taxation  exceeds  the  entire  valuation  of 
either  of  twelve  of  the  twenty-one  counties  in  the  State,  as  re- 
turned to  the  Comptroller  for  the  year  188L  It  is  $177,000 
more  than  the  value  of  the  county  of  Camden,  real  and  per- 
sonal !  It  is  $3,000,000  greater  than  the  county  of  Bergen, 
with  all  its  busy  towns  and  farms!  It  is  more  by  $1,000,000 
'tiian  the  great  county  of  Middlesex,  including  the  city  of  New 
'Brunswick  with  all  its  manufactures!  Greater  than  Warren, 
and  $3,000,000  in  excess  of  Somerset ;  fifty  per  cent,  more  than 
the  value  of  Cumberland  county ;  worth  almost  as  much  as  the 
fine  county  of  Morris,  with  all  its  rich  mines,  valuable  iron 
works  and  thriving  villages;  almost  $6,000,000  more  than 
Gloucester,  and  nearly  of  the  same  value  ai  Hunterdon,  covered 
as  it  is  with  fertile  farms  and  generous  orchards.  And  think  of 
■  it,  you  representatives  of  the  places  I  name !  the  value  of  rail- 
road property  in  Jersey  City  which  pays  it  no  tax  is  about  the 
same  as  that  of  the  four  counties  of  Sussex,  Atlantic,  Cape  May 
and  Ocean  combined  !  And  again,  the  railroad  property  in  our 
city  exempted  from  taxation  by  you  is  nearly  four  times  the 
"value  of  all  the  real  estate  and  personal  property  owned  by  the 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  185 


State,  which  includes  this  State  House,  the  Normal  School, 
Lunatic  Asylums,  State  Prison  and  the  various  properties  devoted 
to  the  uses  of  the  several  institutions  owned  by  the  State !  " 

In  a  paper  subsequently  read  before  the  Kent  Club,  in  Jersey 
City,  Mr.  Charles  L.  Corbin,  a  noted  lawyer  associated  in  the 
firm  of  Collins  &  Corbin,  made  an  even  more  notable  contribu- 
tion to  the  anti-monopoly  literature  of  the  period.     He  called 
attention  to  the  fact  that,  while  New  Jersey  in  population  ranked 
as  the  nineteenth  State,  it  ranked  fifth  in  respect  to  the  magni- 
tude of  its  public  indebtedness  and  second  in  the  table  showing 
the  increase  of  debt  since  1870.     The  States  having  a  greater 
debt  rank  were— New  York,  with  $218,732,000,  the  first  in 
point  of  population  ;  Pennsylvania,  with  $114,034,000,  the  sec- 
ond in  population  ;  Massachusetts,  with  $91,283,000,  the  seventh 
in  population;  Missouri,  with  $57,431,000,  the  fifth  in  popula- 
tion.    New  Jersey  stood  next,  the  nineteenth  in  population,  with 
an  aggregate  local  indebtedness  of  $49,547,000.     New  York — 
with  $59,000,000  increase  of  debt  between  1870  and  1880— 
alone  led  New  Jersey  with  her  $26,692,000  increase.      Mr. 
Corbin  next  noted  that  the  average  rate  of  taxation  in  the  State 
^'  exceeds  two  per  cent,  of  a  valuation  which,  as  compared  with 
that  of  other  States,  is  high.     In  the  State  of  New  York,  ex- 
cluding New  York  City  and  Brooklyn,  the  average  rate  is  less 
than  one  per  cent.     In  Jersey  City  the  rate  of  taxation  is  2.94 
per  cent,  at  a  full  valuation,  and  the  debt  is  not  decreasing.     In 
New  Brunswick  the  rate  is  3.63  per  cent.     In  Camden  it  is 
2.96  per  cent.     Newark  is  reckoned   prosperous  as  compared 
with  other  New  Jersey  cities,  but  its  city  debt  exceeds  $8,000,- 
000,  and  its  burden  of  city  and  county  debt,  per  capita,  exceeds 
that  of  Brooklyn,  which  is  regarded  as  a  very  heavily- burdened 
city.     Elizabeth  and  Rahway  are  both  openly  bankrupt. 

"  The  causes  which  have  produced  these  effects  are,  no  doubt, 
to  a  great  extent,  the  same  that  have  operated  to  produce  indebt- 
edness elsewhere  throughout  the  country.  But  why  should  New 
Jersey  have  distinguished  itself  so  greatly  in  the  race  toward 
bankruptcy  as  to  have  outstripped  all  competitors?  In  particu- 
lar, why  should  the  increase  during  the  ten  years  from  1870  to 


186  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 

1880  have  been  so  great,  exceediog  in  amount  the  increase  in 
any  other  State  except  New  York,  and,  in  view  of  relative  popu- 
lation and  wealth,  greatly  exceeding  the  increase  in  that  State? 
No  intelligent  resident  of  New  Jersey  can  doubt  that,  since  the 
year  1873,  a  rigid  economy  has  been  practiced,  with  trifling  ex- 
ceptions, in  the  various  counties  and  municipalities.  Although 
scandalous  defalcations  have  come  to  light  in  probably  more 
than  half  the  cities  in  the  State,  yet,  with  few  exceptions,  the 
losses  have  been  made  good  to  the  public  by  the  bondsmen  of 
the  guilty  officials,  and  the  crime  punished  by  due  legal  penal- 
ties. No  expensive  public  works  have  been  carried  on.  No 
Governor  of  the  State  has  found  the  cost  of  the  Capitol  a  pain- 
ful subject  to  contemplate  in  an  annual  message.  There  is  no 
State  canal,  no  Brooklyn  or  St.  Louis  bridge,  no  Hoosac  tunnel, 
no  Tweed  court-house,  to  show  for  all  the  millions  added  to  the 
debt  in  the  last  decade.  I  believe  there  is  not  in  all  New  Jersey 
a  city  park  of  ten  acres  extent.  The  public  wealth  has  not 
been  wasted  by  a  Pittsburg  riot  or  a  Philadelphia  Centennial 
Exhibition.  The  people  have,  on  the  whole,  been  more  prudent 
and  economical  than  their  neighbors  in  expenditures  for  public 
purposes.  They  have  been  taxed  since  1870  to  the  limit  of  their 
endurance,  in  some  cases  beyond  it,  and  yet  the  burden  continuea 
to  increase.  The  State,  under  such  pressure,  is  not  sharing  fully 
in  the  general  revival  of  prosperity,  and  should  another  business 
revulsion  take  place  the  number  of  bankrupt  cities  in  New  Jersey 
would  be  greatly  increased. 

"  The  cause  which  far  more  than  any  other  has  given  New 
Jersey  such  eminence  in  the  crowd  of  public  debtors,  can  be 
stated  with  confidence.  More  than  one-fourth  of  the  property 
of  the  State  is  exempt  from  county  and  local  taxation.  That 
exempted  property  belongs  to  the  railroad  companies." 

Proceeding,  after  making  this  forcible  presentation  of  figures, 
Mr.  Corbin  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  assessed  valuation 
of  all  the  property  taxed  in  the  State,  as  stated  by  the  Comp- 
troller's report  for  1882,  was  $535,467,000,  and  that  the  cost  of 
the  railroads  and  equipments,  as  returned  by  the  officers  of  the 
companies  for  the  same  year,  was  $167,618,000.     He  then  went 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  187 

on  to  argue  that  the  value  of  these  roads  was  evidently  much 
greater  in  the  light  of  their  net  earnings,  and  that,  following 
the  method  approved  by  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  of 
valuing  the  property  of  a  railroad  by  calculating  the  value  of  all 
its  Htocks  and  bonds  at  the  market  quotation,  the  worth  of  the 
railroad  property  in  New  Jersey  would  not  run  short  of  §250,- 
000,000.  He  quoted  statistics  to  show  that  the  railroads  escaped 
the  payment,  by  their  exemptions,  of  $2,000,000  of  their  portion 
of  the  public  burden — which,  of  course,  must  be  borne  by  the 
other  property.  "  In  other  words,"  he  concludes,  "  the  people 
of  New  Jersey  are  paying  an  annual  subsidy  of  §2,000,000  to 
the  owners  of  the  railroad  property  in  the  State.  A  State  debt 
of  $50,000,000,  at  four  per  cent.,  would  be  recognized  as  an 
enormous  burden.  And  yet  the  annual  interest  on  such  a  debt 
would  be  only  $2,000,000." 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  Pyrotechnic  Cator  Comes  in  Here,  and  the  Picturesque  Stoey 
OF  THE  First  Anti-Monopoly  Battle  is  Outlined. 


T  was  to  be  expected  that  when  the  size  and  character 
of  the  exemptions  were  thus  paraded  before  the  public 
eye  the  ma^es  would  rise  in  protest,  and  in  Jersey 
City,  where  miles  and  miles  of  property,  seized  by  the 
railroads,  had  been  taken  out  of  the  property  assessable  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  municipal  government,  there  was  a  wide- 
spread anti- monopoly  sentiment.  Though  everywhere  prevalent 
throughout  the  city,  it  was  still  somewhat  nebulous  till  Thomas 
V.  Cator  took  it  upon  himself  to  crystallize  it. 

Mr.  Cator  was  a  handsome  young  New  York  lawyer,  with 
raven  hair  and  brilliant  black  eyes  and  olive  face,  and  a  wonder- 
fully smooth  and  persuasive  tongue,  whose  courtship  of  a  young 
heiress  of  the  Traphagen  family  had  attracted  him  to  Jersey 
City.  Miss  Annie  Post,  to  whom  his  attentions  were  paid,  was 
herself  a  woman  of  culture,  with  a  penchant  for  political  dis- 
cussions and  a  liking  for  public  affairs,  and  it  was  from  her  en- 
tertaining converse,  likely,  that  Mr.  Cator  first  caught  a  glimpse 
of  a  situation  calculated  to  arouse  his  powers,  and  saw  opportu- 
nities for  an  agitation  that  was  admirably  suited  to  his  views 
and  temperament.  A  lover's  desire  to  be  near  to  the  woman  of 
his  choice  was  an  ample  excuse  for  making  his  home  in  Jersey 
City,  and  he  had  not  been  many  weeks  upon  the  soil  before  he 
found  himself  the  center  of  an  admiring  throng  of  self-appointed 
monopoly  fighters.  With  their  aid  he  organized  the  Hudson 
County  Anti-Monopoly  League,  and,  attracted  by  his  eloquence, 
the  crowd  that  gathered  at  each  weekly  meeting  to  listen,  if  not 
to  participate,  grew  larger  and  larger,  till  the  organization  be- 
(188) 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 


18^ 


came  a  serious  menace  to  railroad  domination  or  railroad  any- 
thing else  in  Jersey  City. 

An  opportune  turn  of  fortune's  fickle  wheel  threw  in  his  way, 
almost  as  soon  as  he  had  begun  the  agitation,  an  opening  for 
effective  work  for  the  cause  he  had  gone  to  the  city  to  espouse. 
He  had  made  his  home  in  a  part  of  the  city  largely  settled  by 
Pennsylvania 
railroad  em- 
ployes. If  there 
was  a  corner  of 
the  city  where 
the  influence  of 
that  corporation 
was  considered 
supreme,  it  was 
in  this  Third 
Assembly  D  i  s  - 
trict,  and  it  was 
known  all  over 
the  State,  too,  as 
about  the  only 
reliable  Repub- 
lican district  in 
the  Democratic 
town.  In  spite 
of  its  large  rail- 
road population, 
Mr.  Cator  went 
into  the  Repub- 
lican primaries  there  as  a  seeker  after  the  nomination  for  the 
Assembly  on  an  anti-monopoly  platform  (1881). 

The  "regulars"  of  the  district  hooted  him  as  a  carpet-bagger 
and  an  adventurer,  and  pushed  Asa  W.  Dickinson  forward  in 
his  stead.  Mr.  Dickinson  was  then  a  very  young  man — a  mere 
boy  of  twenty-three  or  four.  He  had  been  the  legislative  cor- 
respondent of  a  local  newspaper  and  become  a  fast  friend  of 
General  Sewell  while  at  Trenton.    He  had  ended  his  newspaper 


Thomas  V.  Cator. 


190 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


career  in  order  to  go  into  the  law,  when  the  solicitations  of  his 
neighbors  tempted  him  into  politics,  and  he  consented  to  go  into 
the  primary  as  a  candidate  against  the  brilliant  anti- monopolist 
leader.  The  hall  in  which  the  primary  was  held  was  packed  to 
suffocation,  and  the  balloting  proceeded  amid  great  excitement. 
At  the  end  of  it  Mr.  Dickinson  had  the  larger  number  of  votes, 
and,  in  accordance  with  usage,  was  proclaimed  as  the  party's 
nominee. 

The  Democrats  of  the  districf  at  once  set  up  the  cry  that  the 

primary  had  been 
packed  in  the  interest 
of  Mr.  Dickinson  by 
the  railroad  companies, 
and  the  surroundings 
pointed  out  Mr.  Cator 
to  them  as  their  candi- 
date on  an  anti- monop- 
oly platform.  The  con- 
test riveted  the  attention 
of  politicians  all  over  the 
State.  Mr.  Dickinson 
tried  to  escape  the  handi- 
cap of  being  regarded 
as  a  railroad  candidate 
by  making  a  personal 
canvass  on  purely  par- 
tisan grounds,  and  might 
have  won  his  fight  had 
he  not  become  enmeshed  in  the  tangles  of  a  collateral  local 
complication. 

It  happened  that  Samuel  W.  Stilsing,  one  of  the  well-paid 
Police  Justices  of  Jersey  City  and  a  Republican  leader  in  the 
district,  was  anxious  to  be  re-appointed.  His  connection  with 
his  office  was  to  end  in  the  following  spring  unless  the  new 
Legislature  in  joint  meeting  re-elected  him.  It  was  necessary,  of 
course,  that  he  should  have  the  support  in  the  approaching 
caucus  of  the  representative  from   his  own  district,    and    he 


Asa  W.  Dickinson. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 


solicited  Dickinson,  as  the  price  of  his  assistance  in  reaching  the 
seat  in  the  Assembly,  to  help  him  to  keep  his  city  office.  Major 
David  A.  Peloubet,  a  rival  power  in  Republican  councils  in  the 
district,  also  aspired  to  be  a  Police  Justice.  He  hoped  to  be 
Stilsing's  successor,  and  Dickinson  had  already  pledged  himself 
to  him.  He  was  therefore  unable  to  give  any  aid  to  Stilsing, 
and  the  Judge  easily  made  terms  with  Cator.  Dickinson 
realized  that  with  Stilsing  favoring  Cator  his  canvass  would 
fail,  and  he  made  strenuous  efforts  to  keep  him  in  line  with  his 
party.  One  Republican  after  another  waited  upon  the  Judge  to 
plead  with  him  to  forego  his  personal  ambition  for  the  party's 
sake.  But  all  to  no  purpose.  And  then  Dickinson's  Repub- 
lican friends  in  other  parts  of  the  State  began  to  bombard  him 
with  imploring  letters.  Among  the  others  the  Judge  found  in 
his  mail  one  morning  was  one  that  made  him  chuckle  all  over 
with  inward  satisfaction.     It  ran  like  this : 

"Dear  Judge— Mr.  Dickinson  is  the  Kepublican  nominee  for  Assembly  in 
your  district.  The  General  and  myself  will  remember  whatever  you  may  do 
in  his  behalf.  Yours  very  truly, 

"C.  Barcalow." 

"  The  General "  was  the  new  United  States  Senator  and  "  C. 
Barcalow"  was  Mr.  Culver  Barcalow,  who  has  already  been 
introduced  to  the  reader  as  the  chief  of  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road lobby  at  Trenton.  The  community  of  Jersey  City  had  also 
been  forced  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  Mr.  Barcalow.  Very 
well  indeed  did  they  know  this  sleek  and  well- dressed  little 
gentleman  with  the  drooping  eyelid.  They  had  found  him  in 
their  path  when  they  went  to  Trenton  to  struggle  against  corpo- 
rate aggressions.  He  had  proven  himself  a  little  too  fertile  in 
resource  and  a  trifle  too  familiar  with  the  ropes  for  those  ama- 
teurs in  lobby  work  who  flocked  to  the  capital  to  clamor  for 
municipal  rights  in  times  of  public  excitement ;  and  they  had 
good  reason  to  remember  him. 

Judge  Stilsing  knew  the  secret  power  for  mischief  that  was 
hidden  in  the  few  lines  a  good  genius  had  placed  in  his  hands, 
and  he  smiled  all  over  his  face  as  he  folded  the  missive  carefully 


192  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

and  tucked  it  away  in  his  pocket.  He  kept  it  there  till  the 
advocates  of  Dickinson  had  grown  red  in  the  face  by  the  vehe- 
mence with  which  they  were  denying  the  insinuation  that  Dick- 
inson's candidacy  had  a  railroad  streak  in  it ;  and  then,  a  day 
or  two  before  the  close  of  the  polls,  he  slipped  up  into  the 
editorial- room  of  an  opposition  newspaper  and  asked  if  the  in- 
cautious letter  might  be  published. 

"  Published ! "  was  the  editor's  vehement  exclamation.  "  Pub- 
lished !  Why,  our  man  is  elected  the  moment  that  letter  gets 
into  type." 

The  district  went  wild  with  excitement  as  it  read  and  re-read 
the  tell-tale  missive.  There  never  was  such  an  outpouring  as 
that  of  the  anti-monopolists  to  defeat  the  young  man  whose 
election  "  Cul "  Barcalow  had  thus  dared  to  espouse.  And  when 
the  vote  was  counted  on  election  night,  the  acclaim  of  the  streets 
and  the  burning  of  bonfires  bespoke  the  public  joy  over  the 
anti-monopoly  leader's  splendid  triumph. 

The  reader  who  is  interested  in  sequels  may  be  assured  that 
Mr.  Cator  secured  a  re-appointment  for  Justice  Stilsing. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

A  Certain  Mr  Shinn,  of  Atlantic,  Comes  to  the  Front  here  with 

SOME  New,  Crisp  Money  that  had  been  Paid  Him  for  His 

Vote    on    the    "Water-Front   Grab    Bill,"    and 

MAKES  AN  Enormous  Sensation  with  it. 


^HE  Legislature  of  1882,  born  of  these  excitements,  was 
divided  between  the  two  parties.  The  House  wa^ 
largely  in  control  of  the  Democrats,  and  there  were 
enough  Republicans  in  the  Senate  to  re-elect  Senator 
Hobart  to  the  Presidency.  The  House  was  Democratic,  but 
Assemblymen  James  C.  Clark  and  Dennis  McLaughlin,  of 
Hudson,  and  Joseph  H.  Shinn,  of  Atlantic,  led  a  revolt  in  the 
Democratic  caucus,  and  there  was  a  delay  of  a  day  or  two  in  the 
choice  of  the  Speaker.  The  diflFerences  were  patched  up,  how- 
ever, and  the  organization  was  eventually  effected  in  the  Demo- 
cratic interest. 

The  rolls  had  scarcely  been  called  in  the  two  Houses  before  a 
whole  school  of  railroad  bills  were  rushed  to  the  desks  of  the 
Secretaries,  and  the  session  throughout  was  one  of  the  most  in- 
tensely dramatic  that  the  galleries  had  looked  down  upon  in 
many  years.  Two  of  these  bills  were  of  decided  interest  to  the 
great  railroad  corporations.  One,  which  became  famous  as 
Senate  No.  Ill,  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  majority  of  railroad 
directors  authority  to  increase  the  capital  stock  of  corporations, 
whether  their  charters  gave  them  the  power  or  not.  It  was  un- 
derstood to  be  of  Central  railroad  inspiration  and  to  be  designed 
to  take  the  control  of  that  corporation  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
stockholders.  The  notable  feature  of  its  passage  was  that  Cator 
left  his  sick  bed  to  vote  for  it,  an  act  that  was  severely  criticised 
by  his  anti-monopoly  friends  as  an  abandonment  of  the  princi- 
ples upon  which  he  had  been  elected. 

13  (193) 


194  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

In  a  personal  letter  to  the  author  of  this  work,  Mr.  Cator 
writes  thus  concerning  that  vote  : 

"Jay  Gould  and  the  Reading  road  had  by  manipulation  got  hold  of  a 
majority  of  the  stock  of  the  New  Jersey  Central,  and  were  about  to  put  the 
N.  J.  Central  into  a  syndicate  to  control  the  coal  supply  (an  arrangement 
similar  to  that  which  Chancellor  McGill  last  year  by  decree  annulled).  Just 
such  an  attempt  was  being  made  in  1882,  and  this  bill  was  expected  to  enable 
the  New  Jersey  people  to  hold  on  to  the  Central  and  keep  it  out  of  such  a 
pool,  which  would  raise  the  price  of  coal  in  New  Jersey  and  New  York,  &c. 
This  was  told  me  by  men  in  whom  I  had  confidence— good  men,  anti-monopoly 
men — and  it  was  true,  and  it  was  a  fight  for  New  Jersey  against  outsiders,  and 
for  the  consumers  of  coal  against  a  contemplated  combination  of  the  New 
York  and  Eeading  ring.  The  Governor  thought  it  unconstitutional.  I 
believed  all  questions  of  that  kind  should  go  to  the  courts  for  settlement,  and 
always  took  that  ground.  I  refer  you  to  page  15  of  my  speech  on  equal  tax- 
ation on  February  6th,  1883,  to  show  you  I  always  took  that  position.  For 
these  reasons  I  gave  my  vote  for  it  in  good  conscience,  and  not  because  any- 
one asked  it,  for  my  vote  was  not  needed.  Aside  from  this,  the  bill  was  good, 
and  I  would  vote  for  it  again.  It  is  always,  to  my  mind,  good  to  call  in  and 
pay  interest-bearing  bonded  debt  overdue  by  substituting  stock,  which  is  an 
obligation  not  bearing  interest  or  a  fixed  charge,  and  this  bill  provided  stock 
could  not  be  sold  at  less  than  par." 

The  other  bill  was  intended  to  assist  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road Company  in  the  settlement  of  some  litigation  in  which  the 
company  had  become  involved  with  Jersey  City.  After  the  rail- 
roads had  acquired  their  riparian  rights  on  the  Hudson  river  and 
New  York  bay  water  fronts,  they  enlarged  their  terminals  and 
railroad  yards  and  made  new  territory  for  themselves  by  filling 
in  the  shallow  points  on  the  shore  with  earth,  and  then  refused 
to  permit  Jersey  City  to  extend  those  of  its  streets  which  pointed 
toward  the  shore  over  these  acres  of  made  land,  to  the  water. 
In  this  way  an  invisible  fence  was  practically  erected  along  the 
old  water-line,  and  all  the  new  territory  that  had  been  made 
beyond  it  was  closed  against  the  public  easements.  The  Board 
of  Finance  instructed  the  corporation  lawyers  of  the  city  to 
bring  suit  to  force  the  companies  to  open  their  gates  so  that  the 
streets  that  had  run  down  to  the  water  could  be  extended  over 
its  property  to  the  new  water-line  it  had  established,  thus  restor- 
ing to  the  public  the  access  through  the  streets  to  the  river  or 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  195 


bay  that  it  had  previously  enjoyed ;  and  Corporation  Attorney 
McDermott  brought  ten  or  fifteen  suits  against  the  Pennsylva- 
nia Railroad  and  other  corporation  trespassers  upon  the  public 
easements.  To  defeat  these  suits,  an  act  which  has  gone  down  into 
history  as  Senate  Bill  167  was  presented  by  one  of  the  Senators. 
Its  title  declared  its  purpose  to  be  the  "establishment  and  protec- 
tion of  the  rights  of  grantees,  lessees  and  licensees  of  the  State 
from  easements  on  land  now  or  hereafter  lying  below  high-water 
mark  on  tide-water."  And  it  practically  declared  that  where, 
on  property  acquired  from  the  Riparian  Commissioners,  the  line 
of  the  land  had  been  extended  farther  into  the  river  by  filling 
for  solid  ground,  the  streets  should  end  at  the  old  river  line. 

The  bill  slid  through  the  Senate  undebated  and  not  under- 
stood if  it  was  noticed  at  all,  and  it  was  not  till  it  reached  its 
second  reading  on  the  Assembly  calendar  that  the  magnitude 
of  the  water-front  seizure  it  proposed  was  realized.  The  New 
York  "  Times  "  was  the  first  to  sound  the  note  of  alarm,  and 
the  New  York  "  Herald  "  joined  in  the  exposure.  Jersey  City 
was  aroused  and  the  halls  of  legislation  were  besieged  by  her 
citizens.  The  opposition  to  the  passage  of  the  act  was  so  strong 
that  the  railroad  company  found  it  necessary  to  send  special 
counsel  to  Trenton  to  defend  it,  and  Governor  Bedle  made  a 
subtle  plea  in  its  behalf  before  the  Committee  of  the  Whole. 
McDermott,  who  was  Assemblyman  as  well  as  City  Counsel, 
responding  to  Governor  Bedle's  argument,  happily  described 
the  bill  as  one  intended  to  build  a  Chinese  wall  around  Jersey 
City.  A  Monmouth  editor  named  Bell,  who  sat  in  one  of  the 
Assembly  chairs,  met  the  attacks  on  the  bill  with  the  astounding 
admission  that  it  had  been  carefully  "  prepared,  discussed  and 
considered  before  introduction,"  and  so  furnished  Assemblyman 
William  McAdoo  with  the  text  for  one  of  the  most  thrillingly 
eloquent  speeches  against  it  that  had  ever  been  heard  on  the  floor 
of  the  Chamber.  Its  other  conspicuous  defender  besides  Bell 
was  a  lawjer  named  Robertson,  representing  one  of  the  Essex 
districts.  In  spite  of  the  charges  made  upon  it  by  McDermott 
and  McAdoo,  it  passed  the  Assembly  with  thirty-eight  votes  to 
its  credit. 


196  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TEENTON. 

The  only  hope  of  defeating  it  now  was  that  which  was  based 
upon  Governor  Ludlow's  interference.  It  was  not  forgotten 
that  before  his  election  he  had  been  one  of  the  attorneys  of  the 
railroad  that  was  behind  the  measure  and  that  the  all-powerful 
corporation  had  even  given  him  the  great  office  he  held  ;  but 
during  his  three  years'  service  in  the  Senate  he  had  impressed 
the  people  as  a  man  of  stern  rectitude,  with  a  Spartan's  courage, 
and  the  people  were  not  without  hope,  when  they  appealed  to 
him,  that  he  would  interpose  his  veto  in  their  behalf. 

A  man  of  massive  head,  set  squarely  on  broad  shoulders,, 
strength  marked  in  every  line  of  his  face,  and  a  square  jaw  that 
bespoke  a  stubbornness  of  temperament — one  had  but  to  look  at 
him  to  feel  that  he  could  not  be  tempted  by  any  inducement  to 
do  that  which  his  conscience  could  not  approve.  He  had  made- 
up  his  mind  before  the  bill  reached  him  that  he  could  not 
countenance  it,  and  he  was  subjected  by  its  promoters  to  an 
enormous  pressure  which  a  man  of  less  stern  mould  could  not 
have  resisted.  He  was  cajoled,  coaxed  and  threatened  by  turns. 
The  obligations  of  fealty  to  the  corporation  whose  employe  he 
had  been,  whose  political  beneficiary  he  was,  were  thrown  in  his 
face.  Glittering  inducements  were  dangled  before  him,  and 
when  he  stood  like  adamant  against  them  all,  a  threat  of 
political  extinction  which  was  afterwards  relentlessly  re- 
deemed, was  hurled  at  him.  But  neither  appeal  nor  tempta- 
tion nor  threat  deterred  him,  and  within  the  limit  of  time  the 
Constitution  allowed  him  he  sent  to  the  two  Houses  a  stinging 
veto  of  the  act. 

Its  passage  by  the  Senate  over  the  veto  was  a  foregone  con- 
clusion from  the  start.  Applegate,  the  dark-mustached  Senator 
from  Monmouth,  declared  the  bill  to  be  one  for  the  protection 
only  of  the  owners  of  riparian  rights.  Gardner  of  Atlantic, 
Vail  of  Union,  Taylor  of  Essex,  spoke  in  the  same  strain. 
Paxton,  the  blonde  Senator  from  Hudson,  and  the  spectacled  and 
dyspeptic  Youngblood,  of  Morris,  alone  raised  their  voices  in 
defense  of  the  veto.  And  the  vote  was  taken.  Applegate, 
Beatty,  Bosenbury,  Deacon,  Doughty,  Gardner,  Hires,  Hobart, 
Lawrence,  Martin  (who  was  Ludlow's  successor  as  the  Senator 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         197 


from  Middlesex),  Merritt,  Nichols,  Taylor,  Vail  and  Worten- 
dyke  voted  to  override  the  veto;  Ferrell,  Havens,  Paxton, 
Stainsby  and  Youngblood  comprised  all  of  the  little  band  that 
stood  by  the  Governor,  and  the  bill  was  rushed  across  the  cor- 
ridor to  be  re  enacted  by  the  Assembly. 

Meanwhile,  the  act  was  being  debated  with  intense  feeling 
outside  of  the  two  Chambers.  At  a  mass  meeting  in  Hoboken, 
the  fiery  McAdoo  had  said  of  the  men  who  voted  for  it  that 
they  stood  before  the  community  as  self-confessed  and  self-con- 
victed scoundrels,  and  Bell,  of  Monmouth,  with  the  air  and  voice 
of  a  Methodist  exhorter,  hauled  him  over  the  coals  for  it.  The 
Speaker  ruled  him  off  his  feet,  however,  with  the  point  that  a 
member  could  not  be  called  to  account  in  the  Chamber  for  words 
spoken  outside. 

This  game  Mr.  Bell  on  the  following  day  moved  the  passage 
of  the  act  over  the  Governor's  veto.  Assemblyman  Lawrence 
was  in  the  chair.  Cator  tried  to  table  the  motion,  and  McAdoo 
to  postpone  its  consideration  indefinitely,  but  without  avail. 
Robertson,  of  Essex,  insisted  upon  its  being  acted  upon,  and  he 
became  quite  a  figure  in  the  subsequent  proceedings  because  of 
the  cool  assurance  with  which  he  faced  the  angry  throng  of 
citizens  that  crowded  the  floor  and  packed  the  gallery.  A  thin, 
undersized  man,  with  clean-shaven,  pallid  face,  but  clear,  cold, 
grey  eye,  one  would  have  supposed  from  his  appearance  that  he 
was  nervous  and  dyspeptic,  and  easily  disconcerted.  But  amid 
all  the  ensuing  excitement,  he  alone  seemed  to  keep  his  head. 
He  became  the  foremost  advocate  of  the  bill,  and  stood  behind 
it  pushing  it  forward  to  its  goal  with  a  merciless  determination. 
He  met  the  efforts  of  Cator  and  McAdoo  for  indefinite  post- 
ponement with  the  point  that  the  House  could  not  escape  its 
constitutional  duty  of  considering  and  disposing  of  a  veto. 
Lawrence  declared  the  point  not  well  taken,  and  the  roll  call  on 
the  motion  to  take  up  the  veto  for  consideration  proceeded 
without  incident  till  the  name  of  Joseph  H.  Shinn,  of  Atlantic, 
was  reached. 

Shinn  was  known  as  one  of  the  roustabouts  of  the  House. 
He  had  the  air  of  a  barkeeper  out  for  a  good  time.     But  he 


198 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 


rose  from  the  most  inconspicuous  of  members  to  be  the  central 
figure  in  the  greatest  of  recent  legislative  battles  the  moment  he 
had  secured  the  recognition  of  the  chair.  A  paper  in  his  hand,  and 
the  fingers  that  held  it,  trembled  so  violently,  as  he  read  from  it^ 
that  it  rattled.  It  was  an  affidavitt  of  his  own,  in  which  he 
charged  that  a  certain  man,  whom  he  did  not  know,  had 
approached  him  to  vote  for  the  passage  of  the  bill  over  the  veto. 
This  as  yet  unnamed  individual  had  gone  at  him  insidiously. 
He  had  a  mathematical  problem  to  submit  to  him :  "As  your 
vote  is  to  Senate  167,  so  is  ^500  to  your  answer."     That  was 

the  problem.  Barkeeper 
though  he  may  have  seemed, 
Shinn  solved  it  at  once,  and 
took  the  solution  to  McDer- 
mott  and  McAdoo.  They  bade 
him  encourage  the  tempter, 
and  he  played  him  along  with 
the  pretext  that  the  price  was 
not  large  enough,  and  $1,000 
took  the  place  of  the  $500  in 
a  new  equation.  Shinn  pre- 
tended to  agree,  and  while  he 
was  eating  dinner  at  his  hotel 
a  day  or  two  later,  a  waiter 
slid  a  long  envelope  under  his 
plate.  He  opened  it  and  un- 
covered five  crisp  $100  bank 
notes.     They  were  half  of  the  promised  bribe  money. 

In  corroboration  of  his  affidavit,  Shinn  fluttered  the  crisp, 
new  bank  bills  in  the  eyes  of  the  startled  members.  The 
chamber  was  thrown  into  indescribable  uproar.  Cator  sprang 
to  his  feet  with  a  motion  for  a  committee  of  investigation,  and 
with  Flynn  and  Gaston  of  Passaic,  Fiedler  of  Essex,  Parrott 
of  Union,  and  Baker  of  Cumberland,  he  was  instructed  to  con- 
duct the  inquiry.  The  House  was  forced  to  a  recess  by  the 
confusion,  and  at  evening  the  committee  began  its  work.  It  sat 
till  daylight  of  the  following  morning.    The  identity  of  Shinn's- 


Culver  Karcalow. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  199 

tempter  was  discovered  in  a  short,  thick- set  man,  with  roving 
coal  black  eyes,  set  in  a  round,  swarthy  face — John  J.  Kromer 
by  name.  The  members  who  had  voted  for  the  bill  before  it 
went  to  the  Governor  marched  through  the  witness-box  in  steady 
procession  to  make  denial  that  they  had  accepted  the  money 
Shinn  had  spurned.  Audacious  little  Robertson  was  obliged  to 
confess  that  he  had  taken  a  retainer  at  his  office  from  an  agent 
of  the  company  "  for  three  or  four  speeches  "  he  had  made  on 
the  Assembly  floor  in  behalf  of  the  bill,  Convery,  of  Middle- 
sex, deposed  he  had  heard  "  from  a  Mr.  Baker  "  that  there  was 
"  money  in  the  bill,"  and  Fiedler,  of  Essex,  told  how  "  Cul." 
Barcalow,  the  legislative  agent  of  the  company,  had,  passing 
him,  let  fly  the  observation  that  it  was  *'  worth  a  thousand  "  to 
vote  for  the  bill. 

The  committee  got  together,  after  all  had  been  heard,  and 
solemnly  resolved  that  there  was  no  corporation  behind  Kromer's 
$500,  and  that  as  for  "Cul"  Barcalow's  passing  remark  to 
Fiedler,  why  it  was  only  one  of  the  exudations  of  his  super- 
abundant jocosity,  and  the  next  day  it  went  into  the  Assembly 
Chamber  to  present  its  sapient  findings. 

The  lugubrious  Bell  claimed  the  floor  on  his  motion,  sus- 
pended by  the  excitements  of  the  day  before,  to  take  up  the 
veto,  when  Cator  asked  leave  to  present  the  report.  It  was  now 
the  last  day  of  March,  and  the  railroad  was  determined  to  push 
the  bill  through  over  the  veto,  in  spite  of  all  the  scandal  it  hsid 
created.  Bell,  its  spokesman  since  Robertson  had  discredited 
himself,  was  unwilling  to  relinquish  his  floor  privilege.  The 
Speaker  ruled  that  the  reading  of  the  special  report  was  of  the 
highest  privilege.  Robertson  placidly  took  an  appeal  from  the 
ruling.  The  hour  fixed  for  the  dissolution  of  the  Legislature 
was  fast  approaching.  But  a  few  brief  minutes  of  the  session 
remained,  and  Robertson  denounced  the  eifjrt  to  put  in  the 
report  as  an  attempt  to  kill  the  bill  by  consuming  in  other  ways 
the  time  needed  for  its  passage.  Bell  made  a  fruitless  effort  to 
have  the  hour  for  final  adjournment  changed  to  midnight.  The 
Speaker  declared  that  only  the  report  was  in  order,  and  Arthur 
Wilson,  the  Clerk,  began  to  read  it.     Robertson  and  Bell  kept 


200  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

their  feet,  shouting,  "Mr.  Speaker!"  The  Clerk  raieed  his 
voice  to  drown  theirs ;  they  keyed  up  their  demands  for  reeog- 
iiition  to  overcome  his;  the  crowd  in  the  gallery  hissed  and 
hooted. 

The  session's  hour-  glass  was  now  draining  off  to  the  last  grains. 
The  excited  throng  kept  their  eyes  anxiously  upon  the  gilded 
Roman  figures  that  indicated  the  minutes  on  the  blue  face  of  the 
big  clock  over  the  folding  doors.  The  long,  slim  second-hand 
stalked  around  it  with  measured  tread,  like  the  leg  of  a  golden 
tspider,  leaping  from  space  to  space  with  a  jerky  spring — the 
Clerk  still  reading,  the  two  corporation  members  still  shouting, 
the  crowd  on  the  floor  and  in  the  galleries  still  hissing  and  hoot- 
ing— -till  it  stroked  off  the  fateful  second  fixed  for  the  close  of 
legislation. 

The  moment  it  had  stalked  there,  with  its  searching,  hunting 
pace,  the  Speaker  declared  the  session  at  an  end,  and  the  defeat 
of  the  bill  was  accomplished. 

Shinn  was  in  high  feather  as  long  as  the  papers  were  parading 
his  name  all  over  the  country  and  commending  him  for  his 
"  manly  incorruptibility  "  and  all  that  kind  of  thing.  But  when 
the  excitement  had  subsided,  and  he  ceased  to  be  an  object  of 
interest  to  the  passing  throng,  he  repented  his  part  in  the  ex- 
posure. He  made  himself  quite  ridiculous  by  his  subsequent 
attempts  to  recover  possession  of  the  five  crisp  bank  notes  that 
he  had  so  ostentatiously  put  in  evidence  for  the  entertainment 
of  the  galleries.  The  money  had  gone  into  the  keeping  of  the 
State,  and  as  there  seemed  to  be  no  way  of  covering  it  into  the 
State's  accounts,  he  claimed  that  he  had  as  good  a  right  to  it  as 
the  Commonwealth  had.  The  plea  availed  him  nothing,  of 
course;  but  it  required  an  act  of  the  Legislature — passed  a  year 
or  two  subsequently — to  place  it  with  the  State's  available  funds. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

In  Which  Senator  McPherson  Brings  a   Democratic  Bolt  to  an 
Inglorious  Climax  and  Cator  Keeps  Up  His  War- 
fare on  the  Railroads. 


d  HE  excitements  of  the  legislative  session  had  charged  the 
political  atmosphere  with  an  anti- monopoly  tremor. 
Jersey  City  was  still  clamoring  against  the  exemptions 
of  railroad  property.  She  was  insisting  upon  equal 
taxation  with  noisy  fervor.  Assemblyman  Farrier  had  put  her 
-demand  in  the  form  of  a  bill.  It  was  to  urge  its  passage  that 
he  delivered  the  speech  from  which  quotations  are  made  in  a 
previous  chapter.  Cator  and  his  League  were  growing  more 
aggressive  and  noisy.  Charles  L.  Corbin's  address  before  the 
Kent  Club  had  commanded  the  attention  of  the  State.  The 
narrowness  of  the  escape  from  the  passage  of  the  water-front 
bill — the  ready  acquiescence  with  which  the  Republican  Senate 
yielded  to  all  corporation  demands — served  to  give  a  Democratic 
drift  to  public  sentiment  in  the  campaign  of  1882.  It  was  what 
is  known  among  the  politicians  as  an  "  off  year."  There  was 
no  State  ticket  to  be  chosen  ;  the  strifes  were  in  the  districts — 
for  Congressmen  and  members  of  the  Legislature.  That  Mr. 
McPherson's  term  in  the  United  States  Senate  was  to  end  in  the 
following  March  was  a  circumstance  that  gave  zest  to  the  legis- 
lative contests. 

The  notable  outcomes  of  the  congressional  controversies  were 
the  defeat  of  ex-Secretary  Robeson,  the  Republican  nominee  in 
the  First  district,  by  Assemblyman  Thos.  M.  Ferrell,  who  had 
grown  up  in  the  Gloucester  glass  factories,  and  of  John  L. 
Blake,  the  Republican  nominee  in  the  Newark  district,  by 
Fiedler,  a  German  hat-seller  whom  the  German  brewers  had 

(201) 


202  MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON. 

backed.  Ferrell  had  interested  the  labor  unions  in  his  canvass^ 
and  Robeson's  friends  always  insisted  that  he  had  to  fight  Sewell 
as  well  as  the  Democrats.  The  loss  of  the  strongest  Repub- 
lican district  in  the  State  by  so  conspicuous  a  citizen  as  the 
ex-Secretary  made  Mr.  Robeson's  defeat  a  matter  of  national 
concern.  Not  less  interesting  to  the  politicians  of  the  State  was 
the  capture  of  the  Newark  district,  second  only  to  the  Camden 
district  in  its  Republican  loyalty,  by  a  Democrat.  In  the 
legislative  contests,  the  Republicans  found  it  possible  to 
retain  control  of  the  Senate  by  a  vote  of  1 2  to  9,  but  the  Demo- 
crats had  a  pronounced  majority  in  the  House.  The  carrying 
of  Burlington  county,  always  steadfast  in  its  Republicanism,  by 
Hezekiah  Smith,  the  Democratic  candidate  for  State  Senator 
there,  and  the  defeat  of  Cooper,  the  Democratic  nominee  in  one 
of  the  unfaltering  Democratic  districts  in  Monmouth,  by  Dr. 
Thos.  G.  Chattle,  on  a  Prohibition  platform,  were  among  the 
most  notable  outcomes  of  the  legislative  struggles. 

When  the  two  Houses  gathered  at  Trenton  for  the  work  of 
the  winter,  John  J.  Gardner,  of  Atlantic,  was  made  President  of 
the  Senate,  and  Wm.  A.  Stiles,  of  Sussex,  a  brilliant  writer  on 
the  editorial  staff  of  the  "Tribune,"  was  made  Secretary.  The 
House  Democrats  promoted  Major  Thos.  O'Connor,  of  Essex, 
to  the  Speakership,  and  put  Arthur  Wilson,  of  Monmouth,  at 
the  Clerk's  desk.  Governor  Ludlow,  in  his  annual  message, 
put  fresh  fuel  on  the  anti-monopoly  fire  by  his  recommendation 
that  a  stricter  method  for  the  assessment  of  railroad  property  be 
devised,  and  that  other  corporations,  then  exempt,  be  subjected 
to  taxation. 

The  overtowering  topic  was  the  election  of  Mr.  McPherson's 
successor.  Mr.  McPherson  himself  was  chief  among  the  can- 
didates. The  State  House  R,ing  liked  the  idea  of  his  re-election 
as  little  as  it  had  the  idea  of  his  first  election,  but  some  of  the 
factors  in  it  deemed  it  prudent  to  keep  in  the  background.  Sec- 
retary of  State  Kelsey  was  less  aggressive  than  he  had  been  in 
1877,  and  it  fell  to  the  share  of  ex-Senator  Little  to  make  the 
battle  almost  alone.  The  enormous  fees  that  the  Secretary  of 
State  and  the  Clerk  in  Chancery  had  been  earning  had  been 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         203 


lopped  off,  and  both  offices  were  made  salaried  position?,  worth 
$6,000  a  year.  Mr.  Kelsey  had,  in  spite  of  the  reduction  in  the 
emoluments,  held  on  to  his  place,  but  Mr.  Little  had  thrown  up 
his  Chancery  Clerkship  to  succeed  Judge  Lathrop  a3  Receiver 
of  the  Jersey  Central  Railroad  Company.  Notwithstanding 
that  he  was  out  of  office,  Mr.  Little  still  exerted  great  political 
influence,  and  he  threw  all  of  his  weight  in  favor  of  Chancellor 
Theodore  Runyon.  Ex-Senator  John  P.  Stockton's  name  was 
also  mentioned,  and  there  were  hints  that  Senator  Abbett  might 
be  driven  to  the  stake  as  a  dark  horse.  Abbett  had  been  Mc- 
Pherson's  ally,  and  though  Governor  Abbett's  friends  claimed 
that  he  had  thirteen  supporters  in  the  Democratic  caucus,  the 
mention  of  his  name  now  was  merely  contingent  upon  Mr.  Mc- 
Pherson's  inability  to  capture  the  caucus.  Stockton  was  against 
McPherson,  but  not  a  very  active  candidate,  and  Runyon  refused 
to  turn  a  hand  over  to  help  himself.  The  result  was  that  when 
the  Democratic  members  of  the  two  Houses  got  together  to  select 
a  candidate.  Senator  McPherson  was  without  effiictive  opposition, 
and  was  easily  made  the  choice  of  the  caucus. 

Within  an  hour  after  the  conference  had  adjourned,  it  became 
known  that  Assemblymen  Dennis  McLaughlin,  Joseph  T.  Kelly 
and  James  C.  Clark  of  Hudson,  Thomas  Flynn  of  Passaic, 
and  William  R.  Jernee  of  Middlesex,  had  decided  to  bolt  the 
caucus.  The  Democrats  had  only  a  slim  majority  on  joint  bal- 
lot, and  the  defection  of  these  five  statesmen  threatened  for  a 
time  to  defeat  Mr.  McPherson's  re-election. 

The  foremost  figure  on  the  Republican  side  when  the  legis- 
lative representatives  of  that  party  went  into  caucus  to  rame 
their  candidate  against  Senator  McPherson  was  ex- Senator  Gar- 
ret Augustus  Hobart,  of  Paterson,  and  their  agreement  to  sup- 
port him  for  the  Senatorship  was  the  natural  outcome  of  the 
situation.  A  native  of  Monmouth  county  and  a  graduate  of 
Rutgers  College,  he  had  gone  to  Paterson  to  study  law  wiih 
Socrates  Tuttle,  a  distinguished  member  of  the  Passaic  county 
bar  and  graduated  into  the  family  of  Mr.  Tuttle  as  a  son-in- 
law.  Miss  Jennie  Tuttle,  a  lovely  and  accomplished  lady,  who 
inherited  much  of  the  keen  intellectuality  and  sparkling  wit  for 


204         MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 


which  her  father  was  widely  famed,  became  the  wife  of  the 
handsome  young  lawyer.  Mr.  Hobart'e  professional,  business 
and  political  career  had  been  one  of  remarkable  success,  with 
few  parallels  among  the  citizens  of  New  Jersey.  This  was  due 
to  natural  endowments  of  ability,  energy,  generosity  and  bon 
homme,  such  as  are  rarely  combined  in  one  individual.  He 
had  begun  his  public  career  as  City  Counsel  of  Paterson,  in 
1871.  A  year  later  he  had  been  made  counsel  of  the  Board  of 
Freeholders  of  Passaic  county.  Elected  in  the  fall  of  the  same 
year  to  the  Assembly  from  the  Third  district  by  the  largest  ma- 
jo  ity  ever  given  there,  he  had  been  elevated  to  the  Speakership 
in  1874.  Declining  the  exceptional  distinction  of  an  election  for 
the  third  term,  in  1875,  he  had,  in  the  following  year,  in  obedience 
to  the  overwhelming  desire  of  his  party,  consented  to  accept  the 
nomination  for  State  Senator,  and  received  a  majority  which  ex- 
ceeded that  cast  for  Mr.  Hayes  for  President.  He  had  served 
two  terms  in  the  State  Senate,  and  in  the  sessions  of  1881  and 
1882  had  been  elected  its  President. 

In  the  Legislature  Mr.  Hobart  had  displayed  exceptional 
ability,  and  had  been  instrumental  in  placing  upon  the  statute- 
book  some  of  the  most  useful  of  laws.  Conspicuous  among 
these  were  the  act,  already  referred  to,  providing  for  a  summary 
ju<licial  investigation  of  the  affairs  of  counties  upon  the  appli- 
cation of  twenty-five  freeholders,  and  another  law  charging  the 
sinking  fund  of  the  State  with  the  payment  of  all  the  interest 
and  part  of  the  principal  of  the  State  debt  yearly,  whereby  the 
ordinary  expenditures  of  the  State  were  reduced  about  $100,000 
per  annum,  which  was  largely  the  cause  of  the  removal  of  the 
State  tax,  the  absence  of  which  is  one  of  New  Jersey's  proudest 
boasts. 

From  the  time  of  his  entrance  into  politics  Mr.  Hobart  had 
easily  commanded  the  foremost  position  of  leadership  in  his 
party  in  Passaic  county,  while  both  before  and  after  his  nomi- 
nation for  the  United  States  Senate  his  capacity  for  political 
generalship  was  recognized  in  a  much  wider  field,  and  in  later 
years  was  in  constant  demand  in  the  State  and  National  Commit- 
tees of  his  party.     Of  the  former  he  was  Chairman  from  1880 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTOX.  205 


to  1891,  and  he  conducted  several  of  its  most  brilliant  cam- 
paigns. He  sat  as  Delegate  and  Delegate-at-large  in  several 
National  Conventions.  In  1884  he  was  chosen  a  member  of  the 
Republican  National  Committee,  upon  the  Executive  or  working 
committee  of  which  he  has  since  continuously  served.  For  a 
number  of  years  he  was  Vice  Chairman  of  the  National  Com- 
mittee, and  several  times  declined  pressing  tenders  of  its 
Chairmanship. 

He  had  been  as  successful  in  business  affairs  as  in  politics, 
and  his  remarkable  ability  in  organization  and  executive  work 
had  led  to  his  aid  being  sought  in  the  formation  and  manage- 
ment of  perhaps  more  corporate  and  private  enterprises  than 
any  other  man  in  New  Jersey.  With  many  of  these  he  was  still 
connected  at  the  time  this  page  was  penned,  as  president,  coun- 
sel, director  or  in  some  other  capacity.  A  full  list  of  these 
would  almost  fill  a  page  of  this  book.  Among  the  notable 
achievements  of  Mr.  Hobart's  business  and  professional  career 
were  his  discharge  of  the  trusts  of  receiver  of  the  New  Jersey 
Midland  Railroad  Company,  of  the  Montclair  Railway  Com- 
pany and  the  Jersey  City  and  Albany  Railroad  Company,  and 
also  of  the  First  National  Bank  of  Newark,  in  1880.  This 
latter  duty  was  fulfilled  with  an  energy  and  ability  that  drew 
from  the  Comptroller  of  the  Currency  the  warmest  expressions 
of  approval,  the  winding  up  of  the  complicated  business  being 
completed  and  the  depositors  paid  in  full  inside  of  six  months. 
Notwithstanding  the  remarkable  pressure  of  his  affairs,  he  found 
time  to  indulge  artistic  tastes  of  the  finest  order,  which  he  cul- 
tivated by  extensive  study  and  travel.  His  home,  "  Carroll 
Hall,"  in  Paterson,  was  known  as  well  then  as  it  yet  is,  as  a 
model  of  refined  elegance,  and  the  hospitality  of  its  popular 
owner  and  his  amiable  and  accomplished  wife  was  famed  far 
and  wide. 

A  man  of  such  wide  and  varied  experience  was  not  the  one 
to  compromise  himself  with  Democratic  malcontents,  whose 
motives  in  holding  out  against  their  caucus  nominee  were  popu- 
larly believed  to  be  far  from  the  highest,  and  his  refusal  to  profit 
by  their  defection  destroyed  the  balance  of  power  which  they 


Garret  A.  Hobart. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.         207 

hoped  to  hold  between  the  two  parties.  During  the  night  pre- 
ceding the  day  on  which  the  joint  meeting  for  the  choice  of  the 
United  States  Senator  was  to  be  held,  Senator  John  W.  Taylor 
and  twenty  other  Republicans  of  both  branches  of  the  Lpgisla- 
ture  marched  in  a  body  into  Senator  McPherson's  room  and 
gave  him  assurances  of  their  readiness  to  aid  him  to  an  election 
if  the  five  bolters  still  held  out  in  joint  meeting.  Jernee  and 
his  fellows  in  the  combine  saw  that  further  opposition  was  use- 
less if  the  Republicans  themselves  were  going  to  help  elect  Mc- 
Pherson,  and  the  combination  lost  cohesion. 

At  noon  of  the  following  day  the  two  Houses  voted  separately 
for  the  candidates.  The  Senate  gave  its  vote  for  Hobart.  In 
the  House,  William  Hill,  of  Essex ;  Flynn,  of  Passaic,  and  E. 
O.  Chapman,  Martin  Steljes  and  James  C.  Clark,  of  Hudson, 
voted  blank.  Chairman  O'Connor  ruled  that  they  must  name 
a  man,  and  they  all  fell  in  line  for  McPherson.  There  being 
thus  no  concurrence  between  the  two  Houses,  it  was  necessary 
for  them,  in  subservience  to  the  constitutional  requirement,  to 
get  together  the  next  day  for  a  joint  ballot.  Courtesy  entitled 
Gardner,  as  President  of  the  Senate,  to  act  as  Chairman  during 
the  joint  meeting,  but  the  Democratic  majority  refused  to  con- 
cede the  point  to  him  because  he  was  a  Republican,  and  made 
him  step  aside  for  Major  O'Connor. 

Rumors  that  Mr.  Cator  was  to  make  an  attack  from  his  chair 
upon  Mr.  McPherson  served  to  crowd  both  floor  and  gallery 
with  interested  spectators.  Chattle,  of  Monmouth,  started  the 
ball  rolling  by  putting  Mr.  McPherson,  "  of  Monmouth  Beach," 
in  nomination.  Senator  Youngblood,  of  Morris,  put  Mr. 
Hobart's  name  before  the  convention.  Cator  rose  from  his  chair 
behind  his  desk,  and  felt  the  inspiration  of  a  great  audience 
when  he  began  the  attack  he  had  promised  to  make.  He  dis- 
coursed about  the  power  of  the  corporations  in  the  councils  of 
the  State,  intimated  that  railroad  influences  had  produced 
McPherson,  and  ended  a  brilliant  and  effective  speech  by  naming 
Governor  Ludlow.  The  vote  was  taken  amid  a  breathless 
silence.     The  count  of  the  tally  showed  43  of  the  ballots  for 


208         MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


McPhersoD,  36  for  Hobart,  and  2— Gator  and  FJynn— for 
Ludlow. 

All  through  the  session  Gator  kept  up  the  anti-monopoly 
dance  he  thus  began.  The  bill  with  which  he  prodded  the 
railroad  corporations  was  one  requiring  them  to  pay  taxes  the 
same  as  individuals  to  the  municipalities  where  their  property 
was  located,  and  in  a  speech  urging  the  passage  of  the  act,  he 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  there  was  $167,000,000  of  rail- 
road property  in  the  State,  and  that  if  taxed  at  full  local  rate, 
it  would  yield  $2,000,000  to  the  local  treasuries,  instead  of  the 
$643,000  then  paid  by  them  into  the  State  treasury  in  lieu  of 
local  taxes.  The  argument  against  it  was  that  the  $643,00Q 
was  a  large  part  of  the  State's  income,  and  that  if  it  were  taken 
out  of  the  State  treasury  and  given  to  the  localities  where  the 
railroad  property  lay,  a  heavier  State  tax  would  have  to  be 
imposed  upon  the  counties  all  over  for  the  enrichment,  chiefly, 
of  Hudson  county,  where  the  valuable  terminals  of  the  railroad 
companies  were  mainly  located.  The  beefy  Bryant,  of  Atlantic, 
who  was  the  chief  spokesman  for  the  railroad  companies  on  the 
Assembly  floor,  tried  to  amend  the  bill  so  as  to  provide  that  the 
money  should  be  paid  into  the  State  treasury  instead  of  into  the 
local  treasuries,  and  appealed  to  all  the  members  from  the  rural 
districts  to  save  their  constituencies  from  further  taxation  by 
voting  with  him.  The  appeal  fell  flat.  The  amendment  was 
lost  by  a  vote  of  43  to  16. 

Tuesday,  February  6th,  was  a  field-day  for  Gator  and  his 
railroad  bill.  Bryant  and  Gronk,  of  Burlington,  opposed  it 
tooth  and  nail.  Assemblymen  Frank  O.  Gole,  of  Hudson,  made 
an  admirable  speech  in  its  behalf;  Gator  scintillated,  and 
Gaston  of  Passaic  and  Parsons  of  Essex  were  heard  in  advocacy. 
The  crowd  in  the  gallery  broke  into  cheers  when  the  bill  was 
announced  as  having  passed  by  a  vote  of  35  to  23.  The  affirma- 
tive responses  were  made  by  Arbuckle,  Armitage,  Bolton,  Budd, 
Gator,  Ghapman,  Glarke,  Gole,  Gonvery,  Flynn,  Gaston,  Gill, 
Harrigan,  Hill,  Hutchinson,  Jenkins,  Kelly,  McLaughlin, 
Mills,  Murphy,  Neighbour,  O'Gonnor,  Parsons,  Rich,  Scott, 
Shannon,   Sheldon,    Shields,    Steljes,   Van    Bussum,    Wanser, 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         200 

Weaver,  Wocdruff,  Wortendyke  and  Youcg.  Those  who  voted 
in  the  negative  were  Applegate,  Bamford,  Bryant,  Campbell, 
Chattle,  Coombs,  Cranmer,  Cronk,  Forman,  Freeman,  Goodwin, 
Haines,  Hoffman,  Jerree,  Lake,  Larrison,  Lewis,  Ludlum, 
Robbins,  Ross,  Smalley,  StaflPord  and  Stoney. 

When  the  bill  reached  the  Serate  Chamber,  it  collided  with 
another  that  had  been  introduced  by  Senator  Griggg,  of  Passaic, 
looking  to  the  same  ends  but  upon  different  lines.  It  was  not 
many  days  before  Cator's  bill  was  reported  by  a  committee  consist- 
ing of  John  S.  Applegate,  of  Monmouth,  and  Abram  V.  Schenck, 
of  Middlesex,  as  unconstitutional,  discriminating,  intffectual, 
and  liable  to  impose  upon  the  counties  the  burden  of  a  larger 
State  tax.  The  adverse  report  determined  its  fate.  When  Mr. 
Griggb'  substitute  bill  was  haled  out  of  the  committee,  it  was 
met  with  the  objection  that  it  was  a  measure  for  revenue,  which 
under  the  Constitution  must  originate  with  the  Assembly,  afid 
that  the  Senate  could  not  consider  it  as  original  legislation.  Mr. 
Griggs  attempted  to  evade  this  point  by  the  shrewd  contention, 
that  his  bill  was  merely  an  amendment  to  Cator's  Assembly 
bill.  The  plea  went  for  naught,  and  the  Legislature  adjourned 
without  accomplishing  any  anti- monopoly  legislation  whatever. 

14 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Which  in  its  way  Pictures  the  Tireless  Fight  Leon  Abbett  Had 

TO   Make  Against  Bitter  Enemies  to   Reach 

ti^e  Goyeknorskip,  in  1883. 


J 6th  the  State  Conventions,  when  they  assembled  to 
select  candidates  for  Governor  in  the  fall  of  1883, 
committed  the  parties  in  their  platforms  to  the  cause 
of  equal  taxation.  The  leaning  of  the  State  towards 
Democracy,  and  the  rancorous  factional  disturbance  between  the 
two  wings  of  the  party,  around  the  larger  interest  in  the  delib- 
erations of  the  Democratic  Convention.  The  name  of  Leon 
Abbett  was  that  most  frequently  heard  in  the  public  places. 
Mr.  Abbett  had  been  out  of  the  public  eye  for  some  years,  but 
during  his  service  in  the  Senate  he  had  proven  a  giant  in  the 
debates  on  the  question  of  railroad  taxation,  which  was  now 
absorbing  the  attention  of  the  people.  In  the  discussions  on  the 
pending  bills,  he  had  dealt  with  the  tax  exemptions,  which, 
declared  by  the  courts  to  be  in  the  nature  of  irrepealable  con- 
tracts with  the  State,  had  for  near  half  a  century  kept  the  tax- 
gatherers  of  the  State  at  bay.  He  had  attacked  them  with  a 
vigor  and  directness  that  marked  him  out  to  the  public,  when  it 
came  now  to  seek  a  new  Governor,  as  one  especially  adapted  to 
the  situation.  Mr.  Abbett  had  no  especial  desire  for  the  Gov- 
ernorship itself,  but  the  United  States  Senatorship,  which  was  to 
be  filled  at  the  close  of  the  gubernatorial  term,  was  a  glittering 
prize  the  reach  for  which  could  be  made  from  the  gubernatorial 
chair.  His  resourceful  genius  had  pointed  out  to  him,  as  the 
tax  discussions  of  the  last  two  or  three  years  had  progressed,  an 
effective  method  of  overthrowing  the  exemptions,  and  he  was 
(210) 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         211 


tempted  to  yield  to  the  popular  desire  that  he  should  take  the 
<jrovernorship  because  of  his  confidence  that  he  could  lead  an 
attack  upon  the  entrenched  corporations  so  brilliant  and  effective 
that  the  people  would  place  the  Senatorship  at  his  disposal  as 
the  reward  for  his  services. 

The  people  had  talked  for  many  weeks  about  dragging  him 
from  his  retirement  again  before  it  became  known  among  his 
intimates  that  he  was  not  averse  to  the  use  of  his  name.  Good 
fortune  gave  him  a  chance,  while  public  sentiment  was  crystal- 
lizing, to  display  his  generalship  in  the  very  direction  in  which 
the  new  Governor  would  be  called  upon  to  go.  The  New  Jersey 
Oentral  Railroad  Company,  already  described  as  one  of  the 
most  grasping  and  arrogant  of  the  non-taxpaying  corporations, 
had  gone  into  the  hands  of  ex- Judge  Francis  S.  Lathrop  as 
receiver,  and  had  run  in  arrears  to  its  employes.  Refusing  all 
•offers  of  retainers,  Mr.  Abbett  took  their  case  into  court,  and, 
■through  proceedings  that  made  their  wages  first  liens  upon  the 
railroad  properties,  forced  their  speedy  settlement.  It  was  a 
step  that  won  him  the  applause  of  the  laboring  element  as  well 
as  of  the  anti-monopoly  element  of  the  State. 

The  State  House  managers  disliked  and  mistrusted  him  as 
■much  as  ever,  but  having  been  twice  humiliated  by  McPherson, 
they  were  not  in  as  good  fighting  trim  as  they  bad  been  in  the 
past.  Mr.  Little  was  the  only  one  of  them  who  undertook  to 
continue  the  struggle  against  him.  The  convention  met  at 
Trenton,  on  September  13th,  and  a  day  or  two  before  its  assem- 
bling. Little  went  to  Freehold  in  the  hope  of  inducing  Joel 
Parker  to  give  Abbett  battle  in  convention.  The  old  war  horse 
refused  to  consent  to  the  use  of  his  name,  and  Little  rushed 
back  to  Trenton  to  make  a  bitter  personal  attack  upon  the 
Hudson  Senator  that  was  designed  to  so  discredit  him  as  to  force 
the  convention  to  nominate  someone  else.  By  the  time  the 
delegates  reached  the  hotel  lobbies,  Mr.  Little  was  ready  to  dis- 
tribute among  them  handfuls  of  circulars  attacking  his  personal 
and  political  integrity.  The  charges  made  in  these  circulars 
were  that  Abbett  had  been  responsible  for  the  Five  County  act, 
•which  practically  permitted  the  mortgagor  to  bargain  with  the 


Leon  Abbett. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         213 

mortgagee  for  a  more  than  the  standard  legal  rate  of  interest, 
that  he  had  oppose i  the  six  per  cent  law,  that  he  had  voted  for 
the  Catholic  Protectory  bill,  that  he  had  been  indicted  for  mal- 
feasance by  the  Mercer  County  Grand  Jury,  that  he  had  aided 
the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  in  seizing  the  water-front 
at  Jersey  City,  and  that  his  general  record  in  the  L°gislature 
was  that  of  a  venal  man.  The  circular  had  not  half  the  elTect 
that  Mr.  Little  had  expected  it  to  have. 

When  the  convention  assembled,  Allan  L.  McDermott  was 
made  temporary  Chairman,  but  the  State  House  managers  scored 
a  point  against  Mr.  Abbett  by  inducing  the  convention  Com- 
mittee on  Permanent  Organizition  to  substitute  George  O  Van- 
derbilt,  of  Mercer,  in  McDermott's  pla^e  as  permanent  Chairman. 
They  may  have  had  hopes  that  Vanderbilt  would  hold  the  con- 
vention against  Abbett  as  they  had  seen  Abbett  himself  hold 
the  convention  against  Cleveland,  but  Mr.  Vanderbilt  was  too 
weak  a  man  to  answer  the  demands  of  such  an  emergency,  and 
he  was  unequal  to  the  occasion.  It  fell  to  Mr.  McAdoo,  of 
Hudson,  to  present  Mr.  Abbett's  name  to  the  delegates,  and  he 
made  Mr.  Little's  circulars  the  object  of  caustic  criticism. 

The  other  names  put  before  the  convention  were  those  of 
Charles  E.  Hendrickson,  of  Burliogton;  Jonathan  Whitaker, 
of  Cape  May;  Theodore  Runyon  and  Andrew  Albright,  of 
Essex;  Augustus  A.  Hardenbergh,  of  Hudson;  Augustus  W. 
Cutler,  of  Morris,  and  Lewis  Cochran,  of  Sussex. 

On  the  first  ballot  Abbett  had  218  votes;  Albright,  139; 
Whitaker,  116;  Hendrickson,  47;  Cochran,  44;  Cutler,  43, 
and  there  were  16  scattering  votes.  It  needed  over  300  votes 
to  make  the  nomination,  and  a  second  ballot  was  ordered  Al- 
bright was  the  only  man  who  held  his  own  against  Abbett. 
The  Cochran,  the  Cutler  and  the  Hendrickson  votes  flopped 
over  almost  bodily  to  Abbett;  and,  the  second  tally  showing 
349  votes  in  his  favor,  he  was  declared  the  nominee. 

Before  the  convention  adj  mrned  it  completed  the  rout  of  the 
State  House  autocracy  by  selecting  John  R.  McPherson  as 
Chairman  of  the  Democratic  State  Committee. 

The  Republicans  hoped  to  have  the  aid  of  the  defeated  and 


214 


MODERN  BATTLES    OF  TRENTON. 


embittered  State  House  autocracy  in  the  canvass  against  Abbett,, 
and  the  prospect  that  the  fight  might  be  won  with  an  acceptable 
candidate  led  them  to  turn  their  eyes  towards  old  John  Hill,  of 
Morris,  as  their  nominee  for  Governor.  John  Hill  was  an 
uncouth  and  unread  farmer.  He  was  a  typical  ruralist,  a  man 
of  plain  manners,  with  a  good  deal  of  bon  homme  about  him^ 
who  had  managed  by  his  restless  activity  in  local  afiPairs  to 
make  himself  both  conspicuous  and  popular  in  Morris  county. 

He  had  been  elected 
to  Congress,  as  the 
result  of  one  of  the 
most  searching  cam- 
paigns in  the  history 
of  the  Fifth  district,, 
and  he  had  immor- 
talized himself  while 
there  by  devising  the 
postal  card  and  mak- 
ing it  a  feature  of  the 
postal  facilities  of  the 
nation.  His  crude 
oratory  was  of  the 
homely  kind  that 
"took"  with  the 
people  of  that  section^ 
and  when  he  went 
into  a  canvass  he 
never  missed  a  school- 
house  in  all  of  the  three  counties  comprising  his  district.  At 
the  time  of  the  agsembling  of  this  convention  he  had  just  com- 
pleted his  fourth  term  in  Congress,  and  a  good  many  of  the 
shrewd  Republicans,  taking  his  successes  in  his  Congressional 
district  as  an  earnest  of  what  he  could  do  throughout  the  State^ 
believed  that  he  was  the  man  whom  the  party  should  send  out 
to  meet  Abbett. 

But  all  the  plans  that  looked  to  his  candidacy  were  spoiled  at 
a  little  dinner  given  by  William  Walter  Phelps  on  the  eve  of 


John  Hill. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  215 

the  assembling  of  the  convention.  General  Sewell,  Frederic 
A.  Potts,  Garret  A.  Hobart  and  others  of  the  Republican  chief- 
tains who  were  at  the  baEquet,  naturally  discussed  the  political 
situation  between  bites,  and  some  one  suggested  the  name  of 
Jonathan  Dixon,  of  Jersey  City,  as  that  of  an  available  man. 
Small  of  stature  and  rather  thin  of  voice,  Judge  Dixon  was  not 
very  imposing  in  form,  but  intellectually  he  was  one  of  the 
cleanest- cut  men  in  the  State.  His  oratory  was  perfect  in  its 
elocution,  his  diction  chaste,  and  his  rhetoric  trained.  His  ex- 
temporareous  speeches,  printed  as  they  fall  from  his  lips,  with- 
out change,  read  as  gracefully  as  the  most  carefully- prepared 
orations  of  scholarly  speakers,  and  it  was  said  of  him,  at  a  trial 
in  which  both  appeared,  that  if  he  had  had  the  presence  and 
the  voice  of  Robert  Gilchrist — who  was  one  of  the  most  dra- 
matic orators  in  the  State  at  the  time — he  would  be  one  of  the 
grandest  public  speakers  in  the  country. 

With  all  his  splendid  intellectual  equipments  Judge  Dixon 
was,  however,  cold,  ungenial,  unapproachable  and  wanting  in 
the  magnetic  qualities  that  gave  Abbett  the  control  of  his  hearers 
the  moment  they  caught  the  sound  of  his  voice.  That  he  sat 
on  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  was  quoted  as 
a  circumstance  of  possible  import,  and  at  the  dinner  at  which 
his  candidacy  was  determined  upon  it  was  a  mooted  question 
whether  he  should  resign  his  judgeship  upon  accepting  the 
nomination,  or  continue  in  the  discharge  of  his  judicial  functions 
while  the  canvass  proceeded. 

The  convention  at  which  these  problems  were  to  be  solved 
was  held  in  Trenton  a  few  days  after  that  which  nominated 
Abbett.  Ex- Senator  Hobart,  as  Chairman  of  the  State  Com- 
mittee, called  it  to  order.  William  Walter  Phelps  entertained 
the  delegates  with  a  brilliant  speech  when  he  stepped  to  the  plat- 
form as  the  temporary  Chairman,  and  John  W.  Taylor,  of  Essex, 
was  made  permanent  Chairman.  Senator  Gardner,  of  Atlantic, 
on  the  call  of  the  counties  for  nominations,  presented  the  name 
of  Israel  S  Adams;  Bergen,  through  General  Duncan,  pre- 
sented that  of  John  Hill ;  Chairman  E.  S.  Renwick,  of  the 
Essex  delegation,  put  Judge  Dixon  in  nomination.     Dixon  had 


216  MODERN   BA.TTLES   OF   TRENTON. 


an  easy  lead,  but  there  was  a  manifest  disposition  not  to  accord 
the  nomination  to  him  till  he  had  given  assurances  that  he 
would  lay  down  his  judgeship.  A  resolution  requesting  him  to 
resign  his  judicial  position  was  proposed,  but  Editor  Pangborn, 
of  Jersey  City,  gave  the  delegates  his  personal  assurance  that 
Dixon  proposed  to  step  down,  and  the  condition  of  the  nomi- 
nation was  not  put  in  the  platform. 

John  W.  Griggs,  who  was  among  the  delegates,  insisted,  how- 
ever, that  the  convention  wait  till  Judge  Dixon  had  been  com- 
municated with.  The  chieftains  who  had  been  at  the  Phelps 
dinner  had  already  discussed  and  settled  the  problem.  They 
had  agreed  that  if  the  natural  majority  in  the  State  were  Repub- 
lican, the  proper  thing  for  Judge  Dixon  to  do  would  be  to  lay 
down  his  judgeship,  and  go  on  the  stump  in  his  own  behalf;  but 
they  did  not  feel  like  demanding  of  him  the  abandonment  of 
his  high  judicial  position  for  the  mere  chance  of  taking  the 
Governship  from  a  pretty  trustworthy  adverse  majority.  And 
in  spite  of  Mr.  Griggs'  attempt  to  delay  the  convention,  they 
succeeded  in  putting  the  Judge  in  nomination  before  the  all-im- 
portant question  had  been  submitted  to  him.  The  event  showed 
that  the  want  of  faith  visible  among  th}  delegates,  in  Pangborn's 
assurance?,  was  fully  justified. 

"The  convention,"  Judge  Dixon  wrote  in  his  letter  of  accept- 
ance, *'  found  me  holding  a  public  office,  second  to  none  in  the 
State  for  usefulness  and  consequent  esteem.  It  did  not  request 
me  to  abandon  that  position  for  the  purpose  of  seeking  another, 
and  I  have  therefore  concluded,  after  weighing  anxiously  the 
varying  counsels  of  friends,  and  influenced  perhaps,  though  I 
trust  not,  by  my  own  preference,  to  await  where  I  am  the 
decision  of  the  people  on  the  choice  which  the  convention  has 
made." 

The  effdct  of  this  little  paragraph  in  the  Judge's  letter  was  to 
rob  the  campaign,  that  was  expected  to  be  full  of  energy  and 
enthusiasm,  of  its  spirit. 

Senator  Abbett  received  the  committee  appointed  to  notify 
him  of  his  nomination,  at  his  home,  on  Sussex  Place,  in  Jersey 
City.     His  announcement  to  them  that  the  Democrats  he  would, 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         217 


if  elected,  recognize  would  be  the  Democrats  who  did  the  work 
in  the  campaign,  was  made  the  text  of  many  a  philippic  by  the 
Republican  orators  and  editors,  but  it  served  to  inspire  the 
workers  of  the  party  to  more  strenuous  efforts  in  his  behalf.  He 
made  a  great  bid,  too,  for  the  favor  of  the  masses  by  declaring 
subsequently  from  a  platform  that  "  when  I  am  elected  Gov- 
ernor, there  will  be  a  change  in  the  Executive  Chamber.  No 
admission  by  card  business  for  me !  If  I  should  catch  any  Sec- 
retary of  mine  faying  who  should  see  me  and  who  should  not 
see  me,  I  would  dismiss  him  in  a  twinkling." 

Joseph  L.  Naar,  Ludlow's  Private  Secretary,  had  brought 
Ludlow's  administration  into  disfavor  among  those  who  had 
business  with  the  Executive  Department  by  stopping  every 
visitor  at  his  desk,  and  admitting  him  or  not  to  the  Executive 
presence  according  to  his  whim. 

At  that  time  Governor  Bedle  and  Senator  Abbett  were  next- 
door  neighbors.  One  stoop,  divided  by  a  railing,  served  the  two 
brownstone  fronts  in  which  they  lived  in  old  Sussex  Place  in 
Jersey  City.  Their  families  exchanged  visits,  and  their  social  rela- 
tions were  close.  But  those  who  knew  that  they  represented  rival 
factions  in  the  party  made  it  a  point  of  disparagement  against 
Abbett  that  the  blue- eyed  ex- Governor  would  refuse  to  vote  for 
him.  Bedle  had  the  confidence  of  the  Hudson  public  to  an  unusual 
degree,  and  Abbett  realized  that  an  understanding  that  he  would 
not  support  him  could  not  but  be  hurtful  to  his  prospects. 
Some  friends  of  his  waited  upon  Bedle  and  urged  him  to  write 
a  letter  publicly  proclaiming  his  loyalty  to  the  party  and  his 
readiness  to  support  its  nominee.  Governor  Bedle  shared  the 
dislike  of  all  his  factional  allies  for  his  neighbor,  and  it  was 
only  after  he  had  been  importuned  in  season  and  out  that  he 
consented  to  put  his  pen  to  paper.  When  he  consented,  how- 
ever, he  spoke  praise  without  stint,  and  commended  the  candi- 
date for  his  "ability,  independence,  manliness,  integrity  and 
personal  worth."  The  remark  of  one  of  the  local  newspapers 
that  "  when  Bedle  says  that  it  means  something,"  shows  the 
campaign  value  of  that  indorsement — a  value  which  was  not 
destroyed  by  any  means  by  the  retort  of  a  cynical  opposition 


218  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

sheet  that  the  "  somethiDg  "  it  meant  was  that  Bedle  wanted  to- 
be  a  Chief  Justice. 

There  never  was  such  a  campaign  of  vilification  as  that  con- 
ducted by  Bedle's  factioral  friends  and  Abbett's  factional 
enemies  against  him.  He  was  accused  of  every  political  crime 
in  the  calendar,  his  personal  probity  was  impugned,  his  private 
life  attacked.  And  the  charges  were  made  with  such  boldness 
that  Chairman  Hobart,  of  the  Republican  State  Committee,  felt 
justified  in  saying  in  a  public  address  to  the  voters  of  the  State^ 
issued  on  behalf  of  the  Republican  State  Committee  at  the  close 
of  the  campaign,  that  the  Democratic  candidate  is  "  not  distin- 
guished for  purity  of  character,  and  his  reputation  is  not,  to  say 
the  least,  above  suspicion." 

A  canvass  made  on  such  lines  naturally  made  Mr.  Abbetfe 
apprehensive  of  the  result,  and  he  saw  from  the  start  that  noth- 
ing but  the  hardest  work  could  save  him  from  defeat. 

And  he  faltered  not  at  the  prospects.  The  moment  he- 
received  the  nomination,  he  entered  upon  one  of  the  most  tire- 
less campaigns  in  all  the  history  of  the  State.  For  six  or  seven 
weeks  he  did  not  take  his  clothes  off  except  to  change  his  linen, 
and  his  average  of  rest  was  scarcely  four  hours  a  night.  He 
addressed  as  many  as  five  meetings  in  one  day,  and  was  hurried 
from  town  to  town,  in  special  trains  and  in  coaches  with  relays 
of  horses,  without  his  meals.  He  held  receptions  after  his 
meetings  and  probably  shook  hands,  before  the  campaign  was 
over,  with  half  the  people  in  the  State.  Fond  mothers  carried 
their  children  to  be  kissed  by  him,  and  for  years  afterwards  it 
was  the  proud  boast  of  many  a  farmer  that  he  had  shaken  a  real 
live  Governor  by  the  hand. 

One  night,  he  was  addressing  a  crowd  at  Perth  Amboy  at 
eight  o'clock,  and  before  eleven  o'clock  was  entertaining  another 
throng  of  voters  at  Phillipsburg,  clear  across  the  State.  That 
night's  experience  became  historic,  and  the  details  of  it,  as  re- 
lated by  William  C.  Reick,  then  a  local  newspaper  correspondent, 
but  afterwards  a  famous  editor  of  the  New  York  "  Herald,"  who 
followed  him  in  his  campaign  till  he  could  no  longer  keep  pace 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         219 

with  him,  is  well  worth  reproducing  from  the  Newark  "  Evening 
News"  of  Saturday,  October  20th,  1883 : 

"As  the  five  o'clock  train  on  the  Central  Railroad  drew  up  at 
Perth  Amboy  yesterday  afternoon,"  the  newspaper  account  reads,, 
"a  bright- eyed,  doughty,  little  man  alighted  from  the  cars  in 
the  midst  of  an  admiring  group  of  friends,  and  as  he  reached 
the  platform  three  cheers  for  Leon  Abbett  were  sent  up.  The 
Democratic  gubernatorial  candidate  and  the  friends  who  ac- 
companied him  took  carriages  and  were  driven  to  the  residence 
of  ex- Assemblyman  Convery,  where  everything  was  found  in 
waiting  for  the  guesis,  who  immediately  repaired  to  the  supper 
table.  Mayor  John  T.  Garrettson,  of  Perth  Amboy,  did  the 
honors  of  the  evening.  At  the  table  were  Leon  Abbett,  Con- 
gressman McAdoo,  William  F.  Abbett,  ex-Assemblyman  Con- 
very,  Colonel  Zalick,  of  Essex,  and  Albert  Hoifman.  Before 
supper  was  over  the  house  was  surrounded  by  enthusiastic 
Democrats,  and  Mr.  Abbett  was  obliged  to  leave  the  table  and 
receive  visitors  in  the  parlor.  The  Jeffersonian  Light  Guard?,, 
of  Perth  Amboy,  headed  by  a  band,  paraded  by  the  house,  and 
a  line  was  formed,  with  Mr.  Abbett  in  the  front  rank,  and  the- 
march  taken  up  to  the  City  Hall.  The  hall  was  used  by 
the  State  Legislature  in  colonial  times,  and  is  much  prized  by 
the  residents  of  Perth  Amboy  for  its  antiquity.  Mayor  Gar- 
rettson opened  the  meeting  and  immediately  introduced  the- 
Democratic  gubernatorial  candidate. 

" '  It  gives  me  great  pleasure/  said  Leon  Abbett,  '  to  be  pres- 
ent with  you  this  evening.  I  did  not  think  I  could  accept  your 
invitation,  as  I  had  previously  promised  to  speak  away  off  at 
Phillipsburg,  in  Warren  county,  and  I  am  going  there  to-night. 
I  have  made  arrangements  to  attend  both  meetings,  that  I  may 
meet  the  Democracy  of  the  two  ends  of  the  State  face  to  face. 
The  candidate  of  the  opposite  party  does  not  desire  that  the 
people  should  see  him  and  therefore  he  stays  at  home.  I  repre- 
sent in  this  campaign  the  principles  of  the  party  that  placed  me 
in  nomination,  and  I  am  not  making  a  personal  fight  to  satisfy 
my  own  ambition  ;  it  is  that  the  living  principles  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party  may  receive  the  sanction  of  the  people  that  I  make 


220  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TREJ^TON. 


this  fight.  The  Democrats  have  governed  the  State  well ;  in 
fact,  better  than  any  State  in  the  Union.  We  do  not  have  to 
pay  one  dollar  of  State  tax ;  the  Democratic  administration  is 
paying  the  expenses  of  the  government  without  it.  If  I  am 
elected  Governor  of  this  State  I  pledge  myself  to  support  and 
continue  the  same  policy  that  has  so  successfully  governed  our 
State. 

"  '  The  Republican  party  is  losing  votes  every  hour/  con- 
tinued Mr.  Abbett,  '  and  they  cannot  explain  their  sudden  alien- 
ation of  thousands  of  voters.  It  is  because  good  and  conscien- 
tious men  joined  the  Republican  party;  they  thought  it  was  the 
right  party.  But  now  they  find  it  corrupt  to  the  core  and  no 
longer  worthy  to  be  trusted.' 

"  Mr.  Abbett  spoke  of  the  Republican  losses  all  over  the 
country,  and  said  it  was  the  desire  of  the  Democrats  to  swell 
the  majority  this  year  so  that  it  would  be  an  easy  matter  to  win 
the  battle  next  year,  when  a  President  was  to  be  voted  for. 

"  '  If  I  am  elected,'  continued  Mr.  Abbett,  '  I  will  give  to  the 
State  a  pure  administration ;  and  I  will  do  more — I  will  see 
that  the  Democratic  party  shall  come  into  the  fight  one  year 
from  now  as  an  organized  party,  and  not  as  a  disorganized  mob. 
There  is  ample  opportunity  for  those  who  want  to  get  into  the 
fold  before  it  is  too  late.  The  Bible  says  that  a  man  may  come 
in  at  the  eleventh  hour  and  receive  his  penny,  but  the  man  who 
is  outside  on  the  day  after  election  will  stay  there,  for  when  the 
door  is  closed  it  will  close  forever,'  concluded  the  speaker  amid 
enthusiastic  applause. 

"  Before  the  cheers  had  died  away  he  had  reached  the  floor  of 
the  hall  and  was  forcing  his  way  through  the  crowd.  He  and 
his  friends  took  carriages  that  were  in  waiting  at  the  door,  and 
the  horses'  heads  were  turned  toward  the  depot  of  the  Lehigh 
Valley  Railroad,  The  horses  were  urged  to  speed  by  the  fre- 
quent use  of  the  whip,  and  the  vehicles  were  whirled  over  the 
roads  at  a  rattling  pace.  At  the  station  an  engine  and  a  car  were 
in  waiting,  and  the  party  jumped  on  board  with  surprising  alac- 
rity. It  had  at  first  been  Mr.  Abbett's  intention  to  take  an 
engine  only,  but  as  several  of  his  friends  volunteered  to  accom- 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         221 


pany  him  on  his  ride  against  time,  an  Eastlake  car  was  attached. 
At  thirty- four  minutes  after  eight  the  party  started.  In  the  car 
were  Leon  Abbett,  his  son  William  F.  Abbett,  Albert  Hoff- 
man, ex-Assemblyman  Convery,  Superintendent  Broadhead  and 
his  assistant,  Mr.  Shay,  of  the  Lehigh  Valley  Railroad  Com- 
pany, and  Mr.  William  C.  Reick,  correspondent  of  the  Newark 
*  Evening  News.'  It  wa3  evident  from  the  start  that  the  engineer 
was  doing  his  best.  The  impenetrable  darkness  without  ren- 
dered it  impossible  to  see  a  foot  from  the  car  windows,  but  the 
steel  rails  outside  upon  the  opposite  track  and  the  cross- tiee^ 
under  the  light  of  the  car  lamps,  looked  like  one  continuous 
board  road.  As  the  engine  rounded  curves  the  occupants  of  the 
car  had  to  clutch  the  seats  for  support.  Suddenly  the  engineer 
drew  up,  and  after  the  occupants  of  the  car  recovered  from  the 
shock  they  found  that  they  were  at  Metuchen  Junction.  The 
engineer  said  that  he  did  not  want  to  try  to  pass  a  train,  and 
the  special  train  was  delayed  about  two  minutes  and  a  half; 
then  the  journey  was  resumed  and  the  same  break- neck  speed 
attained.  At  seven  minutes  past  nine  the  train  shot  past  Three 
Bridges,  a  distance  of  thirty- two  miles  from  Perth  Amboy.  The 
trip  of  thirty- two  miles  had  been  made  in  thirty  and  a  half 
minutes.  The  train  thundered  on  in  the  intense  darkness,  while 
the  party  in  the  car  were  making  themselves  as  comfortable  as 
possible,  Leon  Abbett  estimating  the  number  of  revolutions  the 
drivers  were  making  every  second,  and  the  rest  of  the  party 
talking  politics  and  spinning  campaign  yarns.  At  Flax  Mills 
one  of  the  boxes  took  fire  and  a  stop  had  to  be  made.  A  hose 
was  procured  and  the  fire  put  out.  The  hot  box  caused  a  delay 
of  fifteen  and  a  half  minutes,  at  the  expiration  of  which  the 
train  was  once  more  set  in  motion  for  Phillipsburg.  After  a 
short  run  the  destination  was  reached,  and  it  was  found  that  the 
State  had  been  traversed  from  the  Raritaa  to  the  Delaware,  a 
distance  of  fifty- four  miles,  in  seventy- three  minutes,  with 
eighteen  minutes  lost  in  stops,  making  the  actual  running  time 
fifty- five  minutes.  If  the  train  had  not  been  compelled  to  slow 
up  in  stopping  the  run  would  have  been  made  in  a  mile  a 
minute. 


222  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

"At  Phillipsburg,  Parochial  Hall  was  found  crowded  and 
Allan  L.  McDermott,  of  Jersey  City,  was  speaking.  Leon 
Abbett  was  introduced  and  was  enthusiastically  received.  In  the 
course  of  his  remarks  he  reviewed  the  Democratic  administra- 
tion, arraigned  the  Republican  party  for  extravagance  in  national 
affairs  and  promised,  if  elected,  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  secure 
a  government  of  the  people. 

"After  the  meeting  an  informal  reception  was  held  at  the  Phil- 
lipsburg House  and  at  half-past  eleven  the  train  was  again 
making  for  Perth  Amboy.  The  run  was  not  made  so  rapidly, 
however,  and  it  was  half- past  one  o'clock  before  the  party 
reached  Perth  Amboy. 

"  Leon  Abbett  was  up  bright  and  early  before  the  rest  of  his 
friends  and  was  off  for  Keyport." 

During  all  this  time,  the  Randolph  faction  of  the  party  was 
assailing  him  in  the  newspapers  and  furnishing  the  Republican 
orators  with  points  to  use  on  the  stump  against  him.  Ex-Senator 
Henry  S.  Little  kept  up  his  bitter  personal  attacks,  and  it 
seemed  at  one  time  as  though  there  were  doubts  of  his  elec- 
tion. 

Mr.  Abbett,  however,  went  right  into  the  strongholds  of  his 
factional  opponents  and  literally  fought  them  on  their  own 
ground.  This  bold  system  of  warfare  was  not  without  its 
benefits. 

Mr.  Abbett  did  not  make  as  much  of  a  point  of  Judge 
Dixon's  connection  with  the  discredited  system  of  government 
in  Jersey  City  as  he  might  have  made,  but  confined  himself  to 
the  topic  of  the  tenderness  for  monopoly  interests  that  for  years 
had  exempted  the  railroads  from  taxation.  His  engagement  with 
the  people  whom  he  addressed  was  to  compel  these  corporations 
to  pay  taxes  on  their  holdings,  just  as  the  individual  was  wont 
to  do,  and  his  promise  that  if  he  were  elected  Governor,  enough 
would  be  raised  by  the  State  from  this  source  to  forever  free  the 
people  from  a  direct  State  tax. 

The  promise  to  free  the  people  from  State  taxes  was  a  taking 
<;ard  in  the  rural  districts,  while  the  engagement  to  make  the 
railroads  bear  their  share  of  the  public  burden  won  him  strength 


MODERN   BA.TTLES  OF  TRENTON.         223 

in  the  cities.  And  in  epite  of  all  the  opposition,  inside  his 
party  as  well  as  outside  of  it,  the  energetic  and  tireless  Hudson 
Senator  was  chosen  to  the  Governorship  over  Dixon  by  a 
plurality  of  8,809.  Parsons,  the  Prohibition  candidate,  took 
4,153  Republican  votes  from  Dixon,  and  Urner,  Populist  can- 
didate, took  2,960  from  the  Democratic  side,  so  that  the  net 
Democratic  majority  was  about  7,500. 

The  same  wire  that  carried  to  the  public  the  figures  showing 
Abbett's  handsome  triumph  brought  the  startling  news  that 
■ex- Governor  Theodore  F.  Randolph,  the  leader  of  the  faction 
which  he  had  just  overcome,  had  dropped  dead  at  his  home  in 
Morristown. 

Mr.  Abbett  had  just  turned  forty-eight  when  this  promotion 
•came  to  him.  He  had  come  from  Philadelphia  to  make  his 
home  among  Jerseymen  and  been  pressed  into  politics  almost 
as  soon  as  he  settled  in  Hoboken.  He  had  formed  a  life-long 
partnership  with  W.  J.  A.  Fuller,  a  member  of  the  New  York 
bar  and  as  keen-witted  a  lawyer  as  himself.  Mr.  Fuller  was  a 
•close  friend  of  Dr.  Marcy,  whose  kinship  to  General  George  B. 
McClellan  is  well  known.  Judge  Fuller  was  naturally  enthused 
when  the  General  was  made  the  Democratic  candidate  for  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  in  the  fall  of  1864,  and  when  he 
looked  around  him  for  men  whose  tongues  could  advance  the 
■General's  cause,  the  availability  of  his  bright  young  law  partner 
suggested  itself  to  him.  Abbett  had  never  attended  a  political 
meeting  of  any  kind  up  to  that  time;  but  Judge  Fuller  easily 
persuaded  him  to  go  on  the  stump  for  the  national  ticket,  and 
he  pitched  in  with  characteristic  energy.  His  first  political 
speech  was  made  from  the  steps  of  the  City  Hall  in  Jersey  City. 
He  was  not  a  polished  orator  in  any  sense  of  the  word,  but  he 
was  a  vigorous  and  earnest  and  logical  talker,  and  he  never 
failed  to  carry  the  throng  with  him. 

Recognized  at  once  as  a  man  of  power,  he  was  caught  up  by 
the  local  politicians  and  sent  to  the  Legislature  frequently  after 
1865  as  a  representative  of  Hoboken  and  Jersey  City  constitu- 
encies. His  career  as  far  as  it  concerned  the  more  important 
matters  of  State  has  been  portrayed  in  the  pages  of  this  narra- 


224  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

live;  but  he  had  been  besides  an  aggressive  combatant  against 
the  Republican  jobbers  who  had  entrenched  themselves  in  Jersey 
City.  His  work  in  completing  their  overthrow  by  establishing 
the  charter  that  displaced  them  was  the  culmination  of  a  long^ 
aod  bitter  struggle  on  his  part  for  home  rule  and  the  Democracy 
of  the  city.  He  had  been  active  in  every  political  agitation  of 
the  intervening  fifteen  yearp,  and  his  promotion  to  the  Governor- 
ship was  looked  upon  everywhere  as  the  fitting  reward  of  notable 
public  services. 

Mr.  Abbett  was  formally  inducted  into  the  Governorship  in 
the  following  January,  with  the  usual  ceremonies,  and  his  recep- 
tion in  the  big  parlor  connected  with  the  Executive  Chamber 
was  one  of  the  most  largely  attended  any  Governor  had  ever 
had.  Voters  who  had  shaken  his  hand  during  the  campaign 
flocked  to  the  State  House  from  all  parts  of  the  State  to  renew 
the  acquaintance.  They  brought  their  wives  and  sisters  and 
sweethearts  with  them,  and  two  or  three  women  carried  in  their 
arms  babes  whom  he  had  kissed  during  the  campaign  to  be 
kissed  again. 

"See,  Governor,"  said  one  beaming-faced  matron,  pressing 
her  finger  against  the  cheek  of  her  child,  "that's  just  the  place 
where  you  kissed  Sis  when  you  was  down  to  Salem  last  fall." 

The  Governor  took  the  hint,  and  when  the  proud  mother  passed 
down  the  line  there  was  another  red  spot  on  that  little  one'* 
cheek. 

But  the  tribute  the  Governor  most  highly  prizsd,  probably, 
was  that  paid  him  by  his  own  daughter.  Miss  Mamie,  when,  the 
procession  grown  thin,  she  fell  in  at  the  end  of  the  line  and 
walked  in  her  turn  to  him  lo  salute  him.  He  listened  to  her 
congratulations  and  compliments  with  a  beaming  face  which 
bespoke  his  pleasure  at  her  graceful  attentions. 

In  his  inaugural  Governor  Abbett  made  railroad  taxation  his 
theme. 

"  The  evil  of  bartering  away  the  sovereign  rights  of  the  S  ate 
over  taxation,"  he  said,  "  is  now  apparent  to  all,  but  it  is  a  doc- 
trine which  the  courts  have  recognized,  and  complete  sovereignty 
can  never  be  restored  to  the  State  until  all  contracts  on  the  subject 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         225 


of  taxation  are  extinguished.  Is  there  power  in  the  State  to 
resume  its  lost  sovereignty  ?  How  can  it  extinguish  these  con- 
tracts? I  am  of  the  opinion  that  it  can  be  done  upon  compen- 
sation, and  that  the  measure  of  such  compensation  can  be  de- 
termined by  a  court  and  jury  in  the  same  manner  that  they 
would  determine  the  value  of  real  estate  taken  for  public  uses 
by  private  corporations.  *  *  *  Our  Court  of  Errors  has 
held  that  in  the  exercise  of  eminent  domain  the  Legislature  may- 
confiscate  shares  in  corporations,  and  even  corporate  franchises 
may  be  taken  for  public  uses  upon  just  compeneation,  and  has 
declared  that  the  title  of  this  species  of  property  is  no  more 
secure  against  invasion,  when  the  public  uses  require  it,  than  is 
the  ownership  of  real  estate.  *  *  *  The  public  rfquires 
the  extinguishing  of  these  contracts  in  order  that  the  provisions 
of  our  Constitution  which  require  that  property  shall  be  assessed 
for  taxes  under  general  laws  and  by  uniform  rules  according  to 
its  true  value,  may  be  obeyed." 

Further  on  in  the  address  the  Governor  urged  legislation 
looking  to  the  accomplishment  of  these  ends.  He  pronounced 
himself  opposed  to  the  levy  of  any  direct  State  tax,  and  sug- 
gested that  this  might  be  avoided — first,  by  increasing  the  per- 
centage of  tax  paid  by  the  railroads  on  their  roads,  equipments 
and  appendages  ;  second,  by  subjecting  the  irrepealable  franchises 
of  the  companies  to  taxation  ;  third,  by  taxing  other  than  rail- 
road corporatioES,  such  as  telegraph  and  telephone  companies, 
gas,  insurance  and  trust  companies  and  the  like  ;  fourth,  by  ex- 
acting license  fees  from  foreign  companies  doing  business  in  the 
State;  and,  fifth,  by  imposing  a  collateral  inheritance  tax.  But 
the  chief  of  these  suggestions  was  that  concerning  the  irrepeal- 
able franchises  of  the  railroads. 

"  Tax  us  ■?  "  the  railroads  had  protested  ;  "  why,  we  are  ex- 
empt from  taxation  under  a  contract  from  the  State." 

"  Humph,"  Abbett  proposed  to  say  to  them;  "so  you  have 
an  irrepealable  contract  that  exempts  you  from  taxation,  eh  ? 
Well,  that  contract  itself  is  a  very  valuable  piece  of  property  ; 
we  will  tax  that." 

15 


CHAPTER    XX. 

It  Takes  a  Good  Many  Pages  to  Tell   How  the  Railroads  Were 

Forced  to  Pay  Their  Taxes,  and  How  Mr.  Corbin  was 

Embarrassed  by  Two  Senators  and  Two  Letters, 

AND  How  Bitt  rly  the  State  Had  to 

Fight  the  D.,  L.  and  W.  R.  R. 

Co.  to  Get  Her  Dues. 


HILE  Governor  Abbett's  inaugural  of  course  gave 
/%I^^  direction  and  vigor  to  the  current  of  legislative  talk, 
%^^  the  subject  of  railroad  taxation  and  of  the  devices 
that  were  possible  to  overcome  the  irrepealable  exemp- 
tions, was  not,  as  we  have  seen,  a  new  one  by  any  means.  Away 
back  in  1879  Senator  Cobb,  of  Morris,  had  attempted  to  force 
the  taxation  of  the  capital  stock  and  franchise  of  the  Tuckerton 
and  Atlantic  road,  which  was  at  that  time  seeking  a  charter; 
and  after  the  passage  of  the  Somerset  and  Easton  Kailroad  bill 
in  1872,  Senator  Cutler  had  asked  for  a  special  commission  to 
report  a  general  law  for  the  taxation  of  railroad  property. 
Governor  Abbett  himself,  while  sitting  in  the  Senate  for  Hudson 
county,  had,  in  1876,  offered  a  bill  for  the  taxation  of  corpora- 
tion holdings  equally  with  all  other  classes  of  property.  Assem- 
blyman Farrier  pushed  an  act  of  that  purport  through  the 
Legislature,  but  Governor  Parker,  claiming  that  it  was  inef- 
fective or  oppressive  or  crude  in  some  of  its  provisions,  sent  it 
back  with  his  objections.  In  each  of  his  three  annual  messages — 
1882-3-4 — Governor  Ludlow  too  had  rung  the  changes  on  his 
demand  for  an  intelligent  and  comprehensive  tax  law ;  and  the 
Senate  of  1883  had  discussed  a  scheme  of  legislation  for  two 
days  and  then  discarded  it. 

But  with  Governor  Abbett's  accession  to  the  Governorship, 
the  movement  for  the  reform  presented  an  aspect  of  exceptional 
(226) 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  227 


briskness.  The  Governor  was  looked  upon  as  a  man  of  unusual 
force  and  determination,  and  his  treatment  of  the  question  in 
his  inaugural  was  recognized  by  all  the  railroad  men  in  the 
State  as  a  definitive  declaration  of  war. 

The  Legislature  with  which  he  had  to  struggle  for  the  carry- 
ing out  of  his  recommendations,  was  divided  politically.  The 
Senate  was  in  the  control  of  the  Republicans,  with  the  blonde 
Senator  from  Union,  Benjamin  A.  Vail,  sitting  on  the  presiding 
officer's  dais.  The  Assembly  was  Democratic,  with  Alfred  B. 
Stoney — a  stalwart  six-footer,  who  had  devoted  his  life  to  steam- 
boat-running until  he  came  into  the  Assembly  to  represent  one 
of  the  Monmouth  districts — in  the  Chair.  A  conspicuous  absentee 
from  the  roll  of  equal-taxation  advocates,  was  Assemblyman 
Cator.  He  would  have  been  gladly  returned  to  the  seat  which 
he  had  held  for  two  years,  by  his  district  constituents,  but  he 
had  set  his  ambitious  heart  on  the  Governorship ;  and  in  the 
belief  that  a  demonstration  of  his  ability  to  win  an  office  from 
the  great  Democratic  county  of  Hudson  would  commend  him  to 
the  favor  of  the  Republican  State  Convention,  he  had  been 
tempted  into  accepting  the  Republican  nomination  for  State 
Senator  in  the  poll  of  the  preceding  fall.  The  Democrats 
feared  that  the  popularity  of  his  equal-taxation  crusade  would 
lose  them  the  choice  office,  and  they  felt  the  necessity  of  selecting 
their  most  available  man  to  confront  him  with.  E.  F.  C. 
Young,  a  rising  power  in  business  and  politics,  led  them  to  the 
house  on  Bergen  Heights  next  to  that  in  which  Cator  lived,  to 
find  a  competitor  for  him.  William  BrinkerhoflP  was  not  only 
Cator's  neighbor,  but  his  close  and  intimate  friend.  He  came  of 
an  old  Dutch  family  that  had  at  one  time  owned  most  of  Bergen 
Hill.  He  had  been  Mayor  of  old  Bergen  City  when  a  beard- 
less boy,  and  later  a  member  of  the  State  Constitutional  Com- 
mission of  1873.  Public  questions  had  engaged  a  large  share 
of  his  attention.  He  had  displayed  his  public  spirit  in  opposing 
and  defeating  several  public  jobs.  Even  then  the  county  was 
ringing  with  the  echoes  of  his  battle  with  the  local  Board  of 
Freeholders  over  a  job  by  which  they  had  attempted  to  saddle 
the  county  with  a  costly  court-house  site;  and  because  he  had 


228 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


the  confidence  of  the  people  Mr.  Young  urged  him  as  best  fitted 
to  measure  lances  with  the  rising  anti-monopcly  light.  The- 
contest  was  a  memorable  one.  But  the  grounded  political 
affiliations  of  the  people  overbore  their  zeal  in  the  cause  of 
equal  taxation,  and  believing  likely  that  he  might  be  trusted  to- 
work  as  zealously  in  the  same  direction,  they  gave  their  support 
to  BrinkerhoiF,  and  Mr.  Cator  was  thus  barred  from  a  seat  in 
the  Legislature  that  was  destined  to  deal  decisively  at  last  witb 

the  railroad  taxa- 
tion problem  that 
so  absorbed  him. 

It  is  not  to  be 
understood  that  the 
Legislature  was  un- 
fitted for  the  task, 
even  if  Mr.  Cator 
was  not  then  to  be 
its  moving  spirit. 
At  the  Senate  desks- 
were  Gardner,  of 
Websterian  mould ;, 
rugged  old  Heze- 
kiah  Smith,  of  Bur- 
lington ;  Stainsby^ 
the  veteran  of  Essex 
county  Republican- 
ism ;  Youngblood,. 
of  Morris,  looking 
for  all  the  world 
like  a  jaundiced  old 
woman  behind  his  spectacles ;  the  caustic- tongued  Griggs,  of 
Passaic ;  Brinkerhoff,  scrupulous  about  the  cut  of  his  clothes 
and  the  snowy  whiteness  of  his  linen  ;  and  Vail,  whose  mild 
blue  eyes  and  boyish  face  gave  no  sign  of  the  mental  power  that 
lay  behind  them.  Hudson  sent  to  the  Assembly  chamber  an 
advocate  of  equal  taxation  of  equal  zeal  with  Cator,  in  the 
smooth-tongued  Frank  O.  Cole ;  the  erudite  Edwin  O.  Chap- 


William  Harrigan. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         229 

man,  and  handsome  Colonel  Samuel  D.  Dickinson,  tall  of  figure 
with  rosy  face  and  long,  flowing  blonde  mustache,  were  among 
his  colleagues.  The  old  war-horse,  William  Harrigan,  full  of 
•wit  and  jest,  white-bearded  as  he  was;  John  L.  Armitage,  with 
a  somewhat  shrewish  face;  Rush  Burgess,  suggesting  in  his 
manner  and  air  an  old-time  Virginian  statesman,  and  Lehlbach, 
were  conspicuous  figures  in  the  Essex  gallery.  William  Prall, 
•now  a  distinguished  divine  in  the  West,  but  then  a  very  young 
man  with  a  very  loud  voice,  took  his  first  flight  in  pulpit  oratory 
from  the  Passaic  seats.  Dr.  Chattle  was  one  of  the  three  from 
Monmouth — one  could  read  in  his  face  the  signs  that  he  was  a 
Prohibitionist  and  a  Democrat.  Edward  S.  Savage,  a  polished 
Jawyer  of  sedate  manner,  was  among  the  Middlesex  men. 
Altogether  both  chambers  held  enough  men  of  individuality, 
compass  and  culture  to  present  the  problem  in  all  its  varied 
phases. 

The  session  was  a  week  old  before  Governor  Ludlow  laid 
down  his  high  ofiice  to  his  successor,  and  in  his  annual  message, 
submitted  to  the  Houses  at  their  organization  meeting,  he  had 
paved  the  way  for  the  work  he  knew  Governor  Abbett  was  to 
■enter  upon. 

"  The  question  of  railroad  taxation  has  risen  to  be  one  of  the 
highest  consideration,  and  properly  so,"  he  said,  in  part.  "  The 
investment  in  railroad  property  in  the  State  is  $227,384,534. 
Taking  one  consideration  with  another,  it  is  fair  to  assume  that 
the  rate  paid  by  the  railroads  would  be  a  proper  one  if  it  were 
•assessed  upon  the  full  and  true  value  of  their  property.  The 
trouble  is  that  it  is  not  so  levied." 

These  introductory  observations  led  him  into  an  exhaustive 
presentation  of  the  issue.  It  commanded  the  attention  of  the 
two  Houses  at  once,  and  that  part  of  his  message  was  referred, 
by  a  concurrent  resolution,  to  a  joint  committee,  consisting  of 
Senators  Griggs  and  Schenck,  Republicans,  and  Brinkerhoff', 
Democrat,  on  behalf  of  the  Senate,  and  Assemblymen  Savage 
and  Neighbour,  Democrats,  and  Armstrong,  Republican,  on  be- 
half of  the  House.  The  committee  prepared  to  make  a  careful 
exploration  of  the  whole  field,  and  they  set  days  for  argument 


230  MODERN  BATTLES   OF  TRENTON. 

by  those  who,  from  their  positions,  were  supposed  to  be  best 
primed  with  information  and  suggestions.  The  railroads  were 
not  entirely  unrepresented  in  the  committee,  nor  were  their 
spokesmen  overlooked  in  the  extension  of  invitations.  Early  in 
February  these  appeared  to  present  their  side  of  the  question. 
Senator  Sewell  was  there  to  urge  that  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road paid  a  larger  sum  to  the  State  than  any  other  road,  and 
that,  in  addition,  it  made  Jersey  City  a  gift  of  $30,000  per 
year.  General  Robert  F.  Stockton  defended  the  Erie.  Henry 
S.  Little,  the  Jersey  Central  Receiver,  urged  that  his  company 
should  not  be  required  to  pay  taxes  on  land  that  it  had  lifted  up 
out  of  the  river,  and  ex- Governor  Bedle,  its  counsel,  was  on 
hand  to  say  that  the  company  paid  taxes  through  the  American 
Dock  and  Improvement  Company,  a  corporation  of  its  own  cre- 
ation, in  whose  name  it  held  its  shore- land  title.  Vice  President 
Gibbon  pleaded  that  the  Delaware,  Lackawanna  and  Western, 
besides  a  State  tax  of  $140,000,  paid  ^$  15,000  to  the  localities 
where  its  property  was  located,  of  which  a  pittance  of  $3,000  to 
$5,000  only  went  to  Jersey  City,  and  Cortlandt  Parker  was  on 
hand  to  say  for  the  New  York  and  Greenwood  Lake  road  that 
it  could  not  earn  its  own  living  even,  to  say  nothing  of  helping 
to  sustain  the  community. 

A  single  question  put  by  Senator  Griggs  to  this  notable  aggre- 
gation of  special  leaders  presented  the  two  forces  that  operated 
together  in  the  end  to  produce  the  settlement  that  was  reached^ 

"  Would  your  road,"  he  asked  of  ex-  Governor  Bedle,  "  sur- 
render its  irrepealable  contract  of  exemption  if  the  State  would 
in  her  turn  surrender  her  right  to  take  its  property  at  first 
cost  ?  " 

The  portly  ex  Governor  could  not  answer  that  question  off- 
hand, of  course ;  he  would  have  to  consult  with  the  directors 
first.  The  House  members  were  not  satisfied  with  the  progress 
made  by  the  Joint  Committee.  They  had  a  suspicion  that  the 
railroads  had  inspired  its  creation,  and  that  it  not  only  proposed 
to  make  its  inquiry  exhaustive,  but  proposed  to  make  it  ex- 
hausting as  well — in  the  hope  of  delaying  the  presentation  of  an 
act  till  it  became  too  late  to  perfect  and  pass  it.     Even  the  Sen- 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  2.31 

ate,  traditiooally  responsive  to  corporation  influencep,  was  restive 
while  the  plodding  inquiry  dragged  its  slow  length  along,  and 
exploded  its  suddenly- acquired  anti- monopoly  ardor  in  the  pass- 
age of  a  concurrent  resolution,  with  the  votes  of  only  Bratty, 
Gardner  and  Cranmer  in  the  negative,  so  amending  the  State 
Constitution  as  to  bar  corporations  that  refused  to  obey  the  gen- 
eral tax  laws  from  the  enjoyment  of  any  further  legislation. 

In  the  House  the  defiant  corporations  were  pelted  with  bills 
from  all  directions. 

Mr.  Prall  and  Mr.  Cole  were  the  most  active  in  these  assaults. 
Prall  handed  up  a  number  of  bills  regulating  the  taxation  of 
railroads ;  Cole  led  off  with  an  attack  on  the  New  Jersey  Cen- 
tral Railroad  under  cover  of  a  resolution,  demanding  to  know 
by  what  right  the  State's  privilege  to  take  possession  of  that 
company's  property  which  had  accrued  in  1879,  had  been  barred 
until  1889,  and  requesting  the  views  of  the  Attorney-  General  as 
to  the  right  of  the  Legislature  of  1864,  from  which  the  railroad 
had  secured  its  ten  years  of  additional  grace,  to  extend  it.  He 
followed  this  up  with  a  bill  providing  that  all  property  belong- 
ing to  railroads  should  be  taxed  on  the  same  basis  and  at  the 
same  rate  as  property  belonging  to  individuals,  and  with  a  second 
forbidding  the  railroads  to  acquire  real  estate  till  they  had  filed 
with  the  Secretary  of  State  a  surrender  of  their  exemptions  and 
an  agreement  to  pay  taxes  at  the  full  local  rate.  Attorney- 
General  Stockton  drew  the  sting  from  the  inquiry  into  the  Cen- 
tral Railroad's  extended  time-grant  with  an  opinion  declaring  that 
if  the  company  had  acted  in  good  faith  on  the  act  of  1864,  that 
act  itself  had  become  a  part  of  its  irrepealable  contract  with  the 
State. 

Governor  Abbett  was  not  inactive  all  this  time.  He  was 
busy  with  a  number  of  counselors  in  the  preparation  of  his  own 
equal-tax  act.  It  was  not  an  easy  thing  for  him  to  withstand 
the  pressure  to  which  the  railroad  people  subjected  him  for  an 
abatement  of  his  energies.  The  Democratic  railroad  partisans 
warned  him  that  he  would  wreck  the  party  if  he  persisted  in 
his  course,  while  other  railroad  people  who  did  not  appeal  to 
him   on   partisan  grounds  told  him  that  his  political   future 


232  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTOX. 

would  be  as  black  as  that  marked  out  for  Ludlow.  The 
Governor  met  these  forebodioga  with  the  answer  that  the  party 
which  could  carry  on  the  government  of  the  State  without 
making  the  farmers  foot  the  bill  would  be  impregnable,  and 
that  his  policy  would  get  votes  from  the  people  in  spite  of  all 
that  the  corporations  might  do.  And  so  he  went  along  with 
the  preparation  of  his  bill  till  he  had  perfected  it  and  then 
placed  it  in  Mr.  Prall's  hands  for  presentation  to  the  Assembly. 
The  moment  it  made  its  appearance  on  the  calendar  the  Legis- 
lature was  rent  by  differences  of  view  as  to  whether  it  proposed 
the  most  effective  method  of  reaching  the  point.  It  was  a 
thoroughly-equal  taxation  bill ;  it  came  to  be  known  through 
all  the  subsequent  discussions  as  the  Governor's  bill,  and  be- 
cause the  House  was  Democratic  it  was  enthusiastically  for  it. 
The  Senate,  more  amenable  to  railroad  inflaences,  pinned  its 
faith  to  the  less  rigorous  bill  which  the  Joint  Committee  was 
formulating,  and  which  was  expected,  from  the  character  of  the 
committee,  to  be  more  conservative  of  railroad  interests. 

The  subsequent  progress  of  the  deliberations  brought  the 
dead- lock  between  the  two  Houses  into  the  boldest  relief. 
Jersey  City,  which  would  most  largely  profit  by  that  clause  of 
the  Governor's  bill  subjecting  railroad  property  to  taxation  at 
the  full  rate,  sent  a  delegation  of  citizens  to  argue  in  its  behalf 
before  a  Committee  of  the  Whole  towards  the  close  of  Febru- 
ary. S.  B.  Ransom,  one  of  these,  insisted  that  one-fourth  of 
all  the  assessable  property  in  the  State  had  been  taken  out  of 
the  reach  of  the  tax-gatherer  by  the  railroads,  and  that,  on 
the  assumption  that  the  cost  of  maintaining  the  local  govern- 
ments all  over  the  State  was  $12,000,000,  the  Commonwealth 
was  practically  paying  the  roads  a  subsidy  of  $3,000,000 
annually.  Charles  L.  Corbin  made  an  exhaustive  argument  in 
favor  of  the  bill;  Cortlandt  Parker,  ex-Secretary  Robeson  and 
ex- Governor  Bedle  were  present  to  make  the  responses  for  the 
corporations. 

In  spite  of  the  sentiment  that  backed  it  in  the  Assembly,  the 
Governor's  act  bad  not  climbed  up  very  high  on  the  calendar 
before  the  Joint  Committee  threw  its  bill  into  the  arena  of  dis- 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         233 


•cuseion.  Just  as  those  interested  in  the  conflict  had  anticipated, 
it  was  much  more  conservative  than  the  one  to  which  the  House 
had  given  its  adhesion.  It  imposed  a  tax  of  one-half  of  one  per 
•cent,  upon  the  franchise  for  the  benefit  of  the  State,  and  another 
tax  of  one  per  cent,  upon  the  property  of  the  companies,  except- 
ing the  roadbed,  for  the  aid  of  the  municipalities  in  which  it 
lay.*  The  act  was  simultaneously  offered  in  Senate  and  House, 
Mr.  Griggs  being  its  sponsor  in  the  upper  branch,  and  Neighbour, 
of  Morris,  in  the  lower  branch. 

The  two  Houses  addressed  themselves  to  the  perfection  of  the 
particular  bill  to  which  they  were  disposed.  The  Senate  had 
«et  its  face  against  the  Governor's  bill ;  the  House  completely 
ignored  the  joint  committee's  bill.  When  Neighbour,  who  led 
the  fight  for  the  railroads,  made  an  attempt  to  calendar  the 
committee's  bill,  Mr.  Cole  met  the  motion  with  the  demand 
that  the  House  order  the  Governor's  bill  engrossed  for  third 
reading.  This  brought  Keasbey  of  Essex,  Savage  of  Middlesex, 
and  Armstrong  of  Camden  to  their  feet  with  obstructive  tactics. 
Keasbey  wanted  to  amend  it  further,  and  that  could  not  be  done 
after  it  had  passed  the  stage  of  second  reading;  Savage  and 
Armstrong  wanted  more  time  to  consider  it.  The  bill  was 
progressed,  however,  and  sent  to  the  engrosser's  room  to  be  put 
in  shape  for  final  passage.  The  other  faction  insisted  upon  the 
Joint  Committee's  bill  being  advanced  a  peg  at  the  same  time. 
It  was  Cole's  turn  now  to  be  an  obstructionist.  The  clause 
exempting  the  roadbed  from  taxation  wa^  an  offense  to  his  anti- 
monopoly  nostrils,  and  he  moved  that  it  be  stricken  out.  The 
other  clause  fixing  the  rate  at  less  than  the  prevailing  local  rate 
was  also  obnoxious  to  him,  and  he  demanded  the  substitution 
for  it  of  another  making  the  tax  rate  the  same  as  that  on  other 

*  To  be  more  specific,  railroad  and  canal  property  is  assessed  under  the  act 
as  follows :  All  real  and  personal  property,  including  franchise,  at  one-half 
of  one  per  cent,  for  the  use  of  the  State ;  all  real  estate,  outside  of  main  stem 
(which  is  legislated  to  be  the  roadbed  not  exceeding  one  hundred  feet  in 
width  and  buildings  thereon),  is  subject  to  an  additional  assessment  for  the  use 
of  the  municipalities  in  which  the  property  is  found,  at  local  rates,  but  not  to 
oxceed  one  per  cent.  Personal  property  and  franchises  of  these  corpDrations 
are  exempt  from  municipal  tax. 


234 


MODERN  BATTLES   OF  TRENTON. 


property.  He  carried  the  House  with  him  in  both  these 
assaults  upon  the  Committee's  work.  Not  till  the  bill  had  been 
denuded  of  all  the  features  that  made  it  different  from  the 
Governor's  bill  was  it  allowed  to  go  upon  the  calendar  for  third 
reading.  North,  of  Atlantic,  was  the  only  one  whose  vote  wa& 
cast  in  the  negative. 

After  the  Governor's  bill  bad  been  passed  by  the  House  it 
was  rushed  to  the  Senate  for  concurrence.     The  Senate  at  that 

time  was  wrestling 
with  the  Joint  Com- 
._  mittee    bill.       Two 

reports  had  brought  it 
to  the  calendar  for  dis- 
cussion. One  of  these^ 
the  majority  report^ 
recommended  it  with- 
out amendment.  Sena- 
tor Brinkerhoff's 
minority  report  fa- 
vored the  change  of 
the  taxing  clause  sa 
as  to  make  it  an  equal- 
taxation  measure. 
Governor  Abbeti's  bill 
remained  in  the  pocket 
of  the  committee,  and 
never  saw  daylight  in 
the  Senate  Chamber. 
Gardner,  of  Atlantic,  the  able  advocate  on  the  floor  of  railroad 
interests,  was  not  satisfied  even  with  the  majority  report.  The 
tax  on  franchises  was  not  consonant  with  his  ideas.  With  Griggs 
standing  for  the  bill,  and  Brinkerhoff  for  equal  taxation,  and 
Gardner  opposing  the  franchise  tax,  the  struggle  became  a  three- 
cornered  one,  and  the  discussion  lasted  for  three  whole  days. 

The  Senate,  while  the  bill  was  under  consideration,  gave 
public  hearings  to  all  who  desired  to  appear  before  it,  and  it  was 
announced  that  at  one  of  these  hearings  ex-Assemblyman  Cator 


Join  W.  Griggs. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         23^ 

was  to  speak  for  the  more  liberal  bill  the  Governor  had  devised. 
The  brilliantly- lighted  Senate  Chamber  was  crowded  to  suffoca- 
tion with  an  expectant  audience  at  eight  o'clock  on  the  evening 
fixed  for  this  hearing. 

Cator,  in  evening  dress,  was  in  beautiful  trim  for  the  intellectual 
struggle  he  saw  before  him.  His  eyes  met  such  notable  railroad 
lawyers  as  Bedle,  Parker  and  Thomas  N.  McCarter.  When  they 
had  finished  their  pleas,  Cator  stepped  to  the  middle  aisle,  and, 
with  an  argument  in  behalf  of  the  Governor's  act  equally  bril- 
liant and  eloquent,  kept  the  listening  throng  in  cheers  till  he 
stepped  out  of  view  at  midnight.  It  was  the  most  masterly  and 
complete  presentation  of  the  railroad  tax  problems  to  which  the 
agitation  had  given  birth,  and  as  with  a  deluge  swept  away  all 
the  technical  objections  that  had  been  interposed  by  the  railroad 
advocates. 

The  demonstration  was,  however,  without  its  effect  upon  the 
Senate,  which  still  kept  the  Governor's  measure  out  of  view  and 
proceeded  with  the  consideration  of  the  Joint  Committee's  bill. 
When  it  was  on  second  reading,  over  a  hundred  amendments 
were  considered  and  debated  to  meet  the  constitutional  objections 
which  lawyers  Frederic  W.  Stevens,  Charles  L.  Corbin  and 
Barker  Gummere,  who  had  been  consulted  about  it,  thought 
might  possibly  be  made  to  it.  Governor  Abbett's  sincerity  in 
pushing  for  some  scheme  of  legislation  that  would  bring  the 
corporations  to  the  mark,  was  demonstrated  by  the  aid  he  gave 
the  act,  when  he  saw  that  his  own  would  not  be  accepted  by  the 
Senate.  Old  Senator  Ezra  Miller,  of  Bergen,  who  had  made  a 
fortune  out  of  the  railroads  with  his  car  buffers,  was  disposed  to 
vote  with  the  ten  Senators  who  were  opposed  to  the  imposition 
of  a  tax  on  franchises.  If  he  had  allied  himself  with  them, 
that  very  essential  and  important  feature  of  the  Joint  Com- 
mittee's tax  scheme  would  have  been  destroyed,  and  the  value 
of  the  scheme  as  a  whole  must  have  been  seriously  im}  aired. 
Even  Mr.  Griggs  gives  Governor  Abbett  the  credit  of  having 
enrolled  the  Bergen  Senator  with  the  ten  who  favored  the  tax- 
ation of  franchises,  and  so  contributed  essentially  to  making  it 
a  part  of  the  law.     Wherever  the  Governor  found  a  Democratic 


236 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


Senator  wavering  in  the  support  of  the  bill  in  its  most  stringent 
shape,  he  subjected  him  to  the  pressure  that  kept  him  in  line  for 
it.  When,  after  all  the  amendments  had  been  considered  and 
disposed  of,  the  act  was  eventually  engrossed  in  practically  the 
shape  in  which  it  had  come  from  the  Committee's  hands.  Sena- 
tors Griggs  and  Yail  sat  up  all  night  to  compare  it,  and  the 
next  day  it  went  through  the  Senate  by  unanimous  vote. 

The  House  had  now  passed  Abbett's  equal  taxation  bill ;  the 
Senate  had  committed  itself  to  the  Joint  Committee's  less  rigor- 
ous measure,  and  the 
deadlock  between  the 
Houses  that  was  threat- 
ened when  the  agitation 
began  was  on.  Any  eye 
could  see  that  the  Sen- 
ate would  yield  no  more ; 
it  was  marveled,  indeed, 
that,  in  view  of  the 
known  influence  of  the 
railroads  in  the  chamber, 
it  had  conceded  so  much. 
The  only  unsolved 
problem  of  the  agitation 
was  whether  the  House 
would  yield ;  it  clam- 
ored for  the  Governor's 
bill,  denounced  the  Sen- 
ate bill  as  of  railroad 
inspiration  and  dicta- 
tion, and  refused  to  accept  it.  Chapman  declared  that  he  would 
not  vote  for  such  a  measure.  Harrigan  was  going  to  stay  all 
summer,  if  it  were  necessary,  to  get  equal  taxation. 

Governor  Abbstt  made  the  attitude  of  the  House  the  occasion 
of  a  new  attempt  to  force  the  act  which  he  had  drawn,  out  of  the 
Senate  committee,  which  was  holding  it  back.  He  finally  threat- 
ened to  withhold  his  signature  from  a  host  of  appropriation  bills 
in  which  Senators  were  interested  until  a  revenue  bill  had  been 


Edward  d.  Savage. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  237 


passed.  But  the  Senators  were  not  daunted,  and  they  held  their 
ground  firmly.  The  certainty  that  unless  there  were  conces- 
sions on  the  part  of  the  House  no  bill  at  all  would  be  passed, 
worked  a  gradual  change  of  sentiment  among  its  members. 
Burgess  suggested  that  a  compromise  was  better  than  failure; 
Lehlbach  said  something  about  half  a  loaf;  Savage  made  the 
point  that  even  the  Senate  bill  would  increase  the  State's  reve- 
nue by  about  $300,000  a  year,  and  Cole  himself  finally  acknowl- 
edged that  a  little  was  better  than  nothing.  And  so  the  House 
eventually  gave  an  unwilling  assent  to  the  Joint  Committee's 
measure,  while  it  directed  the  Clerk  to  enter  on  his  minutes  its 
formal  protest  against  the  Senate's  refusal  to  aid  it  in  securing 
the  passing  of  a  "  genuine  equal  taxation  bill." 

The  act  made  the  system  of  taxation  operative  by  authorizing 
the  Governor  to  appoint  a  State  Board  of  Assessors  to  ascertain 
values  and  supervise  the  collection  of  the  railroad  moneys.  As 
the  bill  was  the  product  of  Houses  politically  divided,  it  re- 
quired that  this  board  of  four  members  should  be  iion  partisan  ; 
and,  that  the  railroads  should  not  be  entirely  voiceless  in  the 
selection  of  the  men,  it  forbade  the  Governor  to  commission 
them  without  the  consent  of  the  Senate.  One  of  the  nomina- 
tions— that  of  William  H.  Jackson,  of  Passaic  county — sent  by 
the  Governor  to  the  Senate  was  not  agreeable  to  Senator  Griggs, 
and  the  name  of  Allan  L.  McDermott,  which  was  in  the  list, 
aroused  the  pugnacity  of  all  the  railroad  Senators.  It  was  a 
particular  objection  to  him  that  he  was  especially  close  to  Gov- 
ernor Abbett.  Because  of  the  fervor  with  which  he  had  espoused 
the  cause  of  equal  taxation  he  was  denounced  as  an  Anarchist. 
Senate  President  Vail  arose  in  his  place  when  McDermott's 
name  was  under  consideration  to  announce  that  he  had  a  letter 
in  his  hand  from  a  particularly  distinguished  Jersey  City  lawyer, 
declaring  McDermott  to  be  utterly  unfitted  for  the  position. 

"And  I,"  said  Senator  Brinkerhoff,  "  have  another  letter  from 
an  equally  distinguished  lawyer  in  Jersey  City,  declaring  Mc- 
Dermott to  be  just  the  man  for  the  place.  If  the  Senator  from 
Union  will  tell  me  what  name  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  letter 


238  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

'which  he  has  received,  we'll  exchange  confidences,  and  I  will 
give  him  the  name  of  the  writer  of  the  letter  I  hold." 

"  Well,  the  letter  I  have  bears  the  signature  of  Charles  L. 
Corbin,  of  Jersey  City,"  Youngblood  answered. 

"And  the  letter  I  have,"  rejoined  the  astonished  Brinkerhoff, 
*'  is  signed  by  Charles  L.  Corbin,  of  Jersey  City,  too." 

The  Senate  confirmed  Edward  Bettle,  of  Camden,  and  ex- 
Sheriff  A.  M.  Reynolds,  whose  names  had  been  sent  into  the 
Senate  at  the  same  time,  but  rejected  McDermott,  and,  at  the 
instance  of  Senator  Griggs,  Jackson  as  well.  The  Governor 
submitted  the  name  of  ex- United  States  Senator  Alexander  G. 
■Ca'itell,  of  Camden,  in  place  of  Jackson's,  but  renominated  Mc- 
Dermott. Cattell  was  confirmed  at  once ;  but,  while  the  con- 
firmation of  McDermott  was  pending,  the  hour  fixed  for  the 
close  of  the  session  arrived,  and  President  Vail  arbitrarily  ad- 
journed the  Senate,  without  waiting  for  the  formality  of  a 
motion.  The  Senators  had  not  escaped  from  the  State  House, 
however,  before  they  were  served  with  a  notice  from  the  Gov- 
ernor calling  them  into  extra  session.  McDermott's  name  was 
passed  by  them  at  this  special  sitting,  and  the  new  board  was 
thus  made  complete  for  organization  and  business. 

Arrayed  against  himself  by  the  two  warring  Senators  and 
accused  of  carrying  two  faces,  because  of  the  varying  construc- 
tions that  had  been  put  upon  his  letters.  Counselor  Corbin  felt 
it  necessary  to  explain  things,  and  a  few  days  later  he  published 
a  circular  letter  that  was  read  with  much  interest  at  the  time. 

To  use  a  lawyer's  phrase,  it  was  in  the  words  and  figures  that 
follow,  to  wit : 

My  action  with  reference  to  the  confirmation  of  one  of  the  State  Assessors 
having  been  publicly  misrepresented,  I  make  this  statement  of  the  facts, 
which  I  shall  print  for  convenient  circulation  among  my  acquaintances. 

On  the  21st  of  April  I  wrote  a  letter  to  Senator  Vail  and  another  to  Senator 
Brinkerhofl',  to  further  the  confirmation  of  Mr.  McDermott  as  a  Kailroad 
Assessor.  I  have  not  been  able  to  get  a  copy  of  my  letter  to  Senator  Brink- 
erhoff,  which  he  left  on  the  table  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Senate.  As  I 
remember  it,  I  urged  the  importance  of  having  one  working  lawyer  on  the 
board,  and  concluded  bv  saying: 

"As  to  Mr.  McDermott's  integrity,  I  know  of  no  ground  for  questioning  it 
beyond  the  fact  that  he  is  a  strong  Democrat." 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         239 


The  letter  to  Senator  Vail  was  suggested  by  his  statement,  reported  to  nie, 
that  he  opposed  McDeriuott  as  a  corrui)t  man.  It  was,  as  it  shows  hy  it^ 
terms,  a  personal  letter,  written  with  that  carelessness  and  freediMu  wliich  1 
supposed  our  friendly  relations  would  warrant ;  but  I  do  not  see  how  anyone 
■can  find  in  it  any  ground  to  represent  me  as  opposing  the  confirmation  of  Mr. 
McDermott,  or  how  anyone  could  misunderstand  my  intention  to  promote  it. 

I  have  obtained  from  Senator  Vail  the  following  copy  of  my  letter: 

"Jersey  City,  April  2l8t,  1891. 
""  Bear  Senator  Vail: 

"  I  want  to  say  in  regard  to  McDermott's  appointment,  that  I  think  it  is  a  mistake  to 
regard  him  as  a  corrupt  man.  He  is  a  scheming  politician,  given  to  'deals,'  and 
'combinations'  and  'bargains'  to  forward  political  ends  and  personal  ambition,  but 
I  do  not  think  that  as  an  Assessor  he  would  be  open  to  a  bribe  in  any  form.  I  think  he 
would  be  a  better  Assessor  than  any  one  of  the  three  already  confirmed,  because  more 
•competent. 

"  Yours  truly, 

"C.  L.  CORBIN." 

My  opinion  that  McDermott  was  more  competent  than  the  other  Assessors 
•was  founded  simply  on  the  fact  that  he  is  a  lawyer.  The  Assessors  will  have 
legal  questions  to  decide  at  every  step.  In  fact  this  board  is  a  court,  and 
gives  judgments  which  are  subject  to  be  reviewed  by  the  Supreme  Court. 

The  morning  after  the  confirmation  of  Mr.  McDermott,  there  was  pub- 
lished in  the  New  York  Tribune  and  other  papers  a  statement  representing 
in  effect  that  I  had  written  letters  on  both  sides  of  the  controversy  over  the 
•confirmation,  and  that  my  duplicity  had  been  exposed  in  the  Senate.  On 
inquiry,  I  learned  that  such  an  impression  had  undoubtedly  been  created  in 
the  Senate  by  quotations  made  by  Senator  Vail  from  my  letter  without  pro- 
ducing it,  and  that  he  had  permitted  the  impression  to  stand  uncorrected. 

I  sent  at  once  the  following  correction  to  the  Tribune  and  other  papers: 

"  In  the  Tribune  this  morumg  I  am  represented  as  having  written  to  one  New 
Jersey  State  Senator  opposing,  and  to  another  recommending,  the  confirmation  of  Mr. 
McDermott  as  State  Assessor  of  Railroads  in  New  Jersey.  This  is  without  foundation. 
To  both  Senators  I  wrote  urging  his  confirmation.  To  Senator  Vail,  who  had  declared 
him  to  be  corrupt,  I  wrote  saying  that  though  Mr.  McDermott  was  a  politician  and  given 
to  'deals,'  'combinations'  and  'bargains,'  he  was  not  a  corrupt  man  and  was  a 
competent  man  for  the  oflice.  To  Senator  Vail  and  my  other  Republican  friends  in  the 
New  Jersey  State  Senate  who  declare  that  a  raau  who  makes  '  deals '  must  be  corrupt, 
I  have  to  say :  Let  him  who  is  without  this  sin  among  you  cast  the  first  stone  at 
McDermott. 

"April  23d,  1894.  Charles  L  Corbin." 

I  do  not  pretend  to  be  in  the  humor  to  pay  Senator  Vail  any  compliments, 
but  as  I  am  trying  to  be  as  candid  as  possible,  I  feel  bound  to  say,  in  view  of 
my  hasty  scriptural  fling  at  him,  that  I  believe  that  his  motives  and  those  of 
other  Senators  in  opposing  the  confirmation  were  in  the  main  good,  and  that 
his  reputation  as  a  conscientious  public  man  is  merited. 

I  add  the  following  letter,  received  from  Senator  Vail,  in  response  to  my 
request  to  send  me  my  letter  or  a  copy  of  it : 


240  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


"  Rahway,  N.  J.,  April  25th,  1894. 
"  My  Dear  Sir— Your  letter  dated  April  22d  reached  me  ouly  this  morniug.  I  re- 
turn you  letter  of  April  21st  as  requested.  In  opposing  McDermott's  confirmation  in 
executive  session,  I  said  that  'I  had  that  morning  received  a  letter  from  a  prominent 
lawyer  of  Jersey  City  in  which  he  said  that  he  thought  it  was  a  mistake  to  say  that  McD. 
was  a  corrupt  man,  but  that  he  would  make  any  deal  or  bargain  for  political  ends  and 
personal  ambition,'  and  I  added,  that  'to  my  mind  that  was  a  proper  definition  of  a- 
corrupt  man.' 

'•  1  felt  that  my  remarks  were  justified  by  your  letter,  but  I  did  not  intend  to  use  your 
name,  and  should  not  have  done  so  had  not  Brinkerhofif 's  action  compelled  me  to.  I 
would  like  to  have  your  letter  returned  to  me  unlesfs  you  object. 

"  Yrs.  very  truly, 

"B.  A.  Vail. 
"  Mr.  C.  L.  Corbin. 

"P.  s.— Since  writing  this  letter  I  have  seen  your  card,  published  in  'The  Argus.'' 
You  will  pardon  me,  therefore,  for  retaining  the  original  and  sending  you  the  copy. 

"Yours  truly, 

"V." 

On  this  letter  I  make  only  this  comment,  the  jus  ice  of  which,  I  think,  is 
manifest— that,  after  having  stated  part  of  my  letter,  and  thereby  created  a 
false  impression  of  duplicity,  Senator  Vail  should  have  corrected  it  by  stating 
the  rest. 

The  following  correspondence  with  Senator  Youngblood  will  explain 
itself.     I  freely  pardon  his  impertinence,  in  consideration  of  his  candor : 

"  MoRRisTOWN,  April  23d,  1881. 

"  Dear  Sir— Accept  my  congratulations  on  your  success  as  a  straddler.  One  kind  of 
a  letter  to  Senator  Brinkerhofif  and  another  kind  to  Senator  Vail  shows  that  it  is  hardly 
safe  to  rely  upon  you  for  advice  or  suggestion  on  matters  pertaining  to  the  public  welfare. 

"  Would  it  not  be  well,  in  order  to  place  yourself  right  before  the  public,  to  have  the 

two  letters  published  ? 

"Yours  very  truly, 
"  Charles  L.  Corbin,  Esq.  Jas  C  Youngblood." 

"  Jersey  City,  April  24th,  1884. 
"How.  James  C.  Youngblood  : 

"Dear  Sir— Do  you  really  believe  that  I  wrote  one  letter  to  Vail  opposing,  an(3 
another  to  Brinkerhoff  supporting,  the  nomination  of  McDermott?  If  so,  on  what 
ground  do  you  base  that  belief? 

"I  do  not  understand  the  action  of  yourself  and  others,  including  those  in  the 
Senate  on  whom  I  place  most  reliance.  You  say  that  the  nomination  of  McDermott 
was  part  of  a  bargain  between  the  Governor  and  the  railroads.  Assuming  it  to  be  so, 
what  did  you  do?  You  ratified  those  parts  of  the  bargain  that  profited  the  railroads, 
and  reserved  your  objections  for  that  part  which  promised  some  advantage  to  the 
taxpayers. 

"I  know  McDermott  well.  He  is  a  Democratic  politician.  He  is  no  civil  service 
reformer,  neither  are  his  political  associates  in  New  Jersey.  He  gets  and  gives  political 
appointmejits  by  '  combinations,'  as  many  politicians  of  both  parties  unfortunately 
do.  But  his  personal  integrity  has  never,  so  far  as  I  know,  been  justly  questioned. 
That  is,  as  a  judge  he  does  not  sell  justice,  as  a  city  officer  he  does  not  defraud  the  city, 
and  as  an  Assessor  th«re  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  would  be  corrupt  in  the  dis- 
charge of  his  oflBcial  duties.  That  was  the  important  question  for  the  Senate,  as  I 
supposed,  and  on  that  point,  and  on  his  competency,  I  give  evidence. 

"In  my  private  letter  to  Senator  Vail  1  discussed  McDermott's  character  with  more 
freedom  and  detail  than  in  the  one  to  Brinkerhoff,  which  I  authorized  him  to  use,  but 
in  lx)th  I  urged  McDermott's  confirmation,  and  1  am  surprised  that  Senatcw  Vail  should 
have  allowed  a  different  impression  to  prevail. 

"  Yours  truly, 

"C.  L.  Corbin." 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.         241 


"This  completes  the  history  of  my  experience  in  the  matter  of  political 
patronage  up  to  date,  and  I  trust  for  all  time. 

"Now  that  I  have  the  floor,  I  will  improve  the  occasion  by  some  comments 
on  the  appointments. '  It  was  represented  by  Senators  who  ought  to  know 
that  one  or  more  of  the  Assessors  received  appointment  and  confirmation  as 
'  representing '  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company.  It  seems  to  liave  been  con- 
ceded that  the  company  was  entitled  to  be  '  represented.'  The  law  contem- 
plates judicial  impartiality  on  the  part  of  the  Assessors,  and  provides  that  thev 
shall  not  be  interested  in  any  railroad  company.  The  first  act  under  the  new 
law  was  therefore  in  violation  of  its  spirit.  A  railroad  company  claiming  to 
name  its  own  Assessors!  Look  at  the  imprudence  of  it.  A  litigant  might  as 
well  claim  to  be  'represented'  on  the  jury  that  tries  his  case.  The  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad  Company  will  next  ask  to  be  *  represented '  in  the  Court  of 
Chancery  and  Supreme  Court. 

"And  now,  it  is  said,  the  Erie  complain  tluit  they  have  been  cheated  out  of 
a 'representative!'  Where  do  the  people  of  New  Jersey  come  in?  Some 
very  queer  ideas  seem  to  have  found  lodgment  in  New  Jersey  politics  under 
railroad  government. 

"Now,  I  do  not  say  that  these  Assessors  will  favor  any  railroad  company. 
They  may  be  all  the  more  scrupulous  because  of  the  suspicions  attending 
their  appointment.  To  say  of  an  Assessor  that  he  takes  the  office  for  the 
express  purpose  of  exercising  his  judicial  powers  with  favor  to  a  particular 
company,  or  with  partiality  to  railroads  generally,  is  to  make  a  graver  charge 
against  him  than  any  that  has  been  brought  against  McDermott. 

"The  work  of  the  Assessors  will  be  suhjected  to  a  public  scrutiny  such  as  no 
Assessors  in  New  Jersey  ever  had  to  undergo  before.  The  means  of  testing  its 
uprightness  are  open  to  us  all  in  the  daily  quotations  of  the  Stock  Exchange. 
The  Assessors  must  be  treated  fairly  and  judged  by  their  work. 

"April  28lh,  1884.  Charles  L.  Corbin." 

Cattell  and  Bettle  were  both  Pennsylvania  Railroad  men,  and 
these  concessions  to  it  only  served  to  embitter  the  Jersey  Central 
people,  who  were  implacably  hostile  to  the  act  anyhow.  The 
Jersey  Central  Company  flew  to  the  courts  for  refuge.  It  had 
the  act  removed  on  certiorari  to  the  Supreme  Court  for  review. 
Its  claims  were  that,  applying  only  to  railroad  corporations,  the 
legislation  was  for  a  particuler  interest,  special,  and  therefore 
unconstitutional,  and  that  the  values  fixed  upon  its  franchise 
and  property  by  the  State  Board  of  Assessors  were  excessive. 
The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  and  the  Erie  accepted  the 
act  to  the  extent  at  any  rate  of  paying  their  taxes  for  that  year 
as  fixed  by  the  Board,  into  the  State  treasury,  upon  the  under- 

16 


^42 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


standing  that  if  the  Central  Railroad  Company's  litigation  pre- 
vailed the  moneys  should  be  repaid  to  them. 

A  notable  array  of  lawyers  appeared  in  court  to  prosecute  and 
defend  the  Central's  test  suit.  Ex-Judge  William  T.  Hoffman, 
an  eloquent  Eoglishtown  barrister,  who  had  served  seven  years 
on  the  bench  of  the  Hudson  county  court,  and  a  conspicuous 
Republican  leader ;  Allan  L.  McDermott,  of  Jersey  City,  and 
William  S.  Gummere,  of  Trenton,  assisted  Attorney-General 
Stockton  in  defending  the  work  of   the  State  Board  and  the 

^__ legality    of    the    act. 

The     keen,     shrewd, 

insinuating    and    oily 

iJenjamin  Williamson, 

^  igorous    in    spite   of 

<  is    advanced    years; 

V^illiam  S.  Keracher, 

I  oted  as  the  man  who 

■  id   sent   a    band    of 

lolly  Maguires  from 

.8  Pennsylvania  coal 

mines  to  the  gallows, 

ad    Robert    W.    De 

F  >rest,   appeared    for 

I  lie    railroads.      Vol- 

II  aes  of  testimony 
were  taken  before  Su- 
l»reme  Court  Commis- 
sioner George  W.  Cas- 

sedy,  and  every  item  of  railroad  property  was  made  the  object 
of  minute  inquiry  as  to  cost  and  value.  The  case  was  argued 
'in  the  Supreme  Court  at  the  November  Term  of  1885. 

In  the  February  following  (1886),  the  State  was  thrown  into 
■confusion  by  the  reading  of  Chief  Justice  Beasley's  opinion, 
declaring  the  act  unconstitutional  and  inoperative.  The  con- 
fusion sprang  from  the  fact  that  the  decision  not  only  left  the 
State  without  a  source  of  revenue  for  the  next  fiscal  year,  but 
Also  subjected  it  to  the  necessity  of  repaying  to  the  railroads  the 


William  T.  Hoffman. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  243 

moneys  they  had  conditionally  paid.  They  abstained,  however, 
from  making  any  demand  upon  the  State,  and  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad  Company  even  advanced  the  amount  of  its  tax 
bill  for  the  next  year,  agreeing  to  await  the  determination  of 
the  Court  of  Errors  and  Appeals,  to  which  the  Chief  Justice's 
decision  was  taken  for  review.  When  the  Chief  Justice's 
adverse  opinion  was  read.  Governor  Abbett  found  some  comfort 
in  giving  Senator  Griggs  credit  for  the  defeated  legislation,  and 
insisting  that  if  his  own  bill  had  been  put  through  it  would  not 
have  been  so  easily  overturned.  The  appeal  was  heard  by  the 
higher  court  at  its  next  sitting,  and  a  few  months  later  Chief 
Justice  Beasley's  opinion  was  overruled,  and  the  act  maintained. 
It  was  now  Senator  Griggs'  turn  to  laugh,  and  he  insisted  that 
if  it  had  been  Governor  Abbett's  bill  that  the  court  had  been 
asked  to  maintain,  the  result  would  have  been  different. 

The  Legislature  of  1887  was  compelled  to  return  to  the  con- 
sideration of  the  Railroad  Tax  laws.  The  Delaware,  Lacka- 
wanna and  Western  Railroad  Company  was  still  in  open  rebel- 
lion against  the  sovereignty  of  the  State  and  had  absolutely 
refused  to  render  obedience  to  the  new  act.  It  was  the  only  one 
of  the  trunk  lines  crossing  the  State  that  refused  to  pay  the 
taxes  under  it.  It  claimed  that  a  decision  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court,  declaring  the  clause  in  its  old  charter  exempting 
it  from  State  and  local  taxation  to  be  a  contract  between  itself 
and  the  State  which  the  Legislature  could  not  repeal,  protected 
it  forever  against  any  effort  on  the  part  of  the  State  to  force  it 
to  the  payment  of  taxes.  The  Morris  and  Essex  Railroad, 
which  had  now  become  the  property  of  the  Delaware,  Lacka- 
wanna and  Western  by  perpetual  lease,  was  one  of  the  railroad 
companies  that  had  secured  its  franchise  from  one  of  the  Legis- 
latures of  the  early  thirties,  when  the  State  was  ready  to  make 
any  concessions  demanded  to  tempt  enterprises  that  would  assist 
in  her  development;  and,  in  dealing  with  its  promoters,  as  with 
the  promoters  of  other  railroads,  she  had  helped  it  to  its  feet  by 
exempting  it  from  all  taxation  for  the  first  thirty  years  of  its 
existence,  and  /:hereafter  from  all  but  a  trifling  transit  duty. 
The  Legislature  had  no  idea  at  the  time  that  it  could  not  at  any 


244  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 

future  day  modify  these  liberal  and  helpful  coDcessions;  the 
railroad  companieb'  point  that  the  tax  exemptions  were  of  the 
vital  conditions  upon  which  they  had  built  their  roads,  and  that 
therefore  their  charters  \^ere  in  the  nature  of  irrepealable  con- 
tracts, was  a  surprise.  The  State  courts  had  overruled  this  point 
and  held  railroad  property  to  be  as  subject  to  the  taxing  powers 
as  every  other  class  of  property.  The  Morris  and  Essex  carried 
the  finding  into  the  United  States  Supreme  Court,  and  there  the 
final  judgment  sustaining  its  irrepealable  contract  claim  that  now 
made  it  so  arrogantly  defiant  of  the  taxing  powers  of  the  State 
had  been  rendered. 

In  granting  its  franchise,  however,  the  State  had  happily  re- 
served an  option  to  condemn  at  the  end  of  fifty  years,  which  now 
proved  the  weak  point  in  the  company's  armor.  The  year 
when,  under  this  reservation,  the  State  could  take  possession  of 
the  company's  property  at  its  first  cost,  was  close  at  hand,  and 
Governor  Abbett  used  it  as  a  weapon  with  enormous  effect  in 
bringing  the  railroad  company  to  terms.  William  H.  Corbin, 
who,  representing  one  of  the  Union  districts,  led  the  battle 
against  the  company  in  the  Assembly,  sprang  even  a  finer  tech- 
nical point  upon  it  when  he  discovered  that  the  United  States 
court  decision  declared  only  that  clause  in  its  charter  which 
exempted  it  from  taxation  to  be  irrepealable.  The  rest  of  its 
charter  was  plainly  within  the  compass  of  legislative  action ; 
the  State  had  not  lost  the  right  to  repeal  every  other  section 
of  it.  Mr.  Corbin  began  his  attack  on  the  road  on  that  line, 
when  in  1885  it  first  evinced  a  disposition  to  beard  the  State 
authorities. 

Its  continued  defiance  of  the  State's  sovereignty  led  the 
Governor,  in  his  annual  message  at  the  opening  of  the  session 
of  1886,  to  advise  the  passage  of  an  act  forbidding  any  foreign 
corporation  to  exercise  any  corporate  act  in  the  State  until  it 
had  filed  with  the  State  Comptroller  its  consent  to  pay  taxes 
as  a  domestic  corporation.  The  Delaware,  Lackawanna  and 
Western  Railroad  Company,  which  had  absorbed  the  Morris 
and  Essex,  derived  its  charter  from  the  State  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  the  suggestion  of  the  Governor's  message  was  intended  ta 


MODERN  BA.TTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


245 


•cripple  it  in  the  transaction  of  its  business  over  its  leased  lines 
in  New  Jersey.  In  the  midst  of  these  movements,  rumors 
gained  currency  that  the  company  had  not  even  paid  into  the 
State  treasury  the  whole  of  the  pittance  which,  by  its  own  ad- 
missions, the  State  could  exa^t  from  it  under  its  charter.  The 
State's  tax-bills  had  been  computed  on  the  basis  of  the  com- 
pany's own  returns  to  the  State  of  its  taxable  assets ;  and,  while 
the  session  of  1886  was  still  young,  a  joint  resolution  was 
oflfered  ordering  that  au  investigation  be  made  into  the  accuracy 
— the  honesty,  if  you  please — of  these  returns.  Assemblyman 
Corbin  went  to  the  aid  of 
the  resolution,  and  Hud- 
speth and  Besson  joined 
with  him.  Pintard,  of 
Monmouth,  who  de- 
scribed it  as  an  inquisi-  / 
tion,  made  a  weak  oppo-  / 
sition.  The  courage  of 
the  Legislature  was  not 
equal  to  the  emergency, 
and  the  resolution  was 
lost  by  a  tie  vote. 

The  interposition  of  " 
the  trial,  in  impeachment 
proceedings,  of  a  State 
Prison  Keeper  on  charges 
preferred  by  some  of  the 
women   in   his   keeping, 

diverted  the  attention  of  the  Senate  from  the  pending  contro- 
versy, and  gave  the  combatants  a  breathing  spell.  Neither  the 
charge  nor  the  hearing  based  upon  it  was  of  a  character  to  be 
detailed  in  these  pages.  As  it  had  not  the  remotest  relation  to 
the  current  of  public  movements  or  the  smallest  influence  upon 
them,  it  is  as  unnecessary,  as  it  would  be  offensive,  to  go  over  the 
miserable  details  of  the  case.  It  was  said  that  the  charge  had 
been  instigated  by  reckless  party  malice,  and  when  the  Senators 
•came  to  declare  their  verdict  their  sentiment  was  divided  by  the 


George  O  Vauderbilt. 


246  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TEENTON. 

party  line.  Ten  of  the  Democratic  Senators  found  the  accused 
official  not  guilty ;  the  ten  Eepublican  Senators  voted  him 
guilty.  It  lay  with  Senator  Vanderbilt,  of  Mercer,  to  break 
the  tie.  His  vote  with  the  Republicans  sent  the  official  out  into 
the  world  branded  with  an  infamy  that  could  never  be  wiped  out. 
The  condemned  man  was  a  factional  friend  of  Governor  Abbett, 
and  he  had  availed  himself  of  the  opportunities  his  residence  in 
Trenton  affiarded  him  to  conduct  Abbett's  battle  with  the  old 
State  House  regime  in  their  stronghold  of  Mercer.  Vanderbilt 
was  in  sympathy  with  Abbett's  party  opponents,  and  he  was 
freely  criticised,  after  his  vote,  as  having  allowed  his  factional 
animosities  to  sway  his  judgment  in  weighing  up  his  verdict. 

Friend  as  he  had  been  counted  of  the  impeached  official.  Gov- 
ernor Abbett  stretched  out  no  hand  to  save  him,  nor  gave  any 
attention  to  the  trial.  He  was  rather  engrossed  by  the  struggle 
over  the  enforcement  of  the  Tax  act  against  the  recalcitrant 
railroad  company.  Legislative  functions  were  suspended,  and 
the  House  was  forced  to  a  recess  while  the  impeachment  pro- 
ceedings dragged  their  weary  length  along,  and  the  Governor 
busied  himself  in  planning  a  new  line  of  attack  upon  the 
corporation. 

The  Delaware,  Lackawanna  and  Western  Railroad  Company 
had  been  engaged,  for  some  time  prior  to  the  passage  of  the  act, 
in  a  litigation  over  the  tax-bills  due  the  State  under  the  old  ex- 
emption laws ;  and  it  transpired  during  the  course  of  the  litiga- 
tion that,  in  making  return  to  the  State  of  the  taxable  assets  of  its 
leased  road,  the  Morris  and  Essex,  it  had  scaled  down  the  value 
of  its  personal  property  and  equipments  from  $13,000,000  to 
$3,000,000.  And  in  a  special  message,  read  when  the  Legisla- 
ture came  together  again  in  June,  Governor  Abbett  made  the 
startling  charge  that,  by  thus  hiding  some  of  its  ratablee,  the 
company  bad,  for  each  of  twenty  years,  paid  to  the  State  $50,000 
less  of  taxes  than  the  S:ate  had  a  right  to  receive  and  that  it 
was  in  arrears  to  the  amount  of  a  round  million  of  dollars. 

When  the  message  had  been  received  a  discussion  arose  as  to 
the  department  to  which  it  should  be  referred  for  investigation. 
Hudspeth  asked  its  reference  to  a  special  committee  of  three, 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.         247 

but  Mr.  Corbin's  motion  carried  it  into  Committee  of  the  Whole. 
There  Mr.  Corbin  made  the  chief  speech  in  favor  of  his  motion 
to  refer  the  claim  to  the  Attorney  General  for  prosecution  ;  but 
Armstrong  raised  the  point  that  that  method  of  treating  the 
matter  had  already  been  disposed  of  in  the  House,  and  Assem- 
blyman A.  F.  R.  Martin,  of  Essex,  who  was  in  the  chair,  sus- 
tained the  point.  The  House  finally  decided  to  advance  a  bill, 
offered  by  Besson,  referring  the  whole  matter  to  the  State  Board 
of  Assessors,  and  the  bill  was  passed  by  a  vote  of  42  to  9. 
When  it  reached  the  Senate,  Youngblood  tried  to  amend  it,  but 
Senators  Brinkerhoff  and  Fish  opposed  the  amendment,  and  the 
bill  was  passed  without  a  dissenting  voice.  That  brought  the 
two-days'  special  session  to  its  close. 

The  State  Board  of  Assessors  found  the  company  wholly  un- 
manageable, and  the  Legislature  of  1887  returned  to  the  charge 
upon  it,  with  Assemblyman  William  H.  Corbin,  of  Union,  in 
command  and  an  air  that  meant  business.  He  marshaled  the 
lines  for  the  support  of  an  act  drawn  by  Governor  Abbett  and 
introduced  by  Assemblyman  Thomas  F.  Noonan,  of  Hudson, 
authorizing  the  State  officials  to  proceed  to  the  condemnation  of 
the  railroad  company's  property,  with  the  view  of  taking  it  out 
of  the  hands  of  its  stockholders.  Assemblyman  Corbin  gave 
assurances  that  the  State  had  made  an  offer  to  the  company  that 
if  it  would  surrender  its  tax  exemptions  and  submit  to  the  tax 
laws,  the  State  would,  for  her  part,  surrender  her  right  to  repeal 
its  charter.  The  proposition,  Mr.  Corbin  said,  had  stood  for  a 
year  unaccepted  ;  the  company  had  even  refused  to  consider  it. 
These  announcements  aroused  so  evident  a  determination  on  the 
part  of  the  Legislature  to  resort  to  confiscation  that  the  com- 
pany became  alarmed,  and  it  sent  ex- Governor  Bedle,  its  chief 
counsel,  to  Trenton  to  plead  for  mercy.  Governor  Bedle  made 
a  three- days'  speech  from  the  Speaker's  desk  in  its  behalf  before 
the  House,  in  Committee  of  the  Whole,  and  Mr.  Cator  and  Mr. 
Corbin  answered  him. 

"  It  will  not  do  to  divert  attention  from  the  real  object  of  this 
bill,"  Mr.  Corbin  said  in  one  part  of  his  speech,  "  by  pointing 
to  small  private  interests  when  we  have  so  big  a  subject  to  act 


MS 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


upon.  The  question  is  whether  we  are  men  enough,  whether 
Vfe  are  broad  enough  of  view,  whether  there  is  enough  of  the 
suggestion  of  statesmen  about  us  to  enable  us  to  rise  to  the  plane 
of  this  legislation,  and  to  assert  the  power  of  the  State  over  all 
property  within  its  boundaries.  It  is  as  clear  as  light  that,  in 
the  nature  of  things,  you  cannot  make  with  the  sovereign  power 
an  unchangeable  contract ;  and  yet  this  railroad  company  demand 
that  we  shall  forever  exempt  them  from  taxes  because  by  an 
unfortunate  train  of  circumslances  the  exemption  the  State 
extended  as  a  beneficence,  has  been  forced  upon  her  as  a  contract. 

The  State  has  adopted  a 
policy  which  has  re- 
mained in  force  for  fifty 
years,  of  such  liberality 
and  generosity  towards 
the  railroads  as  almost 
defies  example.  I  do  not 
know  the  State  in  which 
there  has  been  anything 
like  it.  The  only  in- 
stances which  at  all  corn- 
fare  with  it  are  the  in- 
stances of  the  general 
government  making  rail- 
road grants  for  the  pur- 
pose of  building  Western 
roads.  And  what  have 
we  received  in  return  for 
it~all  ?  We  have  built  up  the  railroads  of  the  State,  and  now 
when  they  have  grown  to  the  stature  of  giants,  we  find  this  one 
ready  to  throttle  up.  And  this  leads  me  to  say  that  we  have  been 
generous  not  only  with  our  own  creatures,  but  with  the  creatures 
of  our  sister  States,  It  is  not  the  old  Jersey  corporations  that 
make  this  trouble.  It  in  only  when  we  have  fostered  the  cor- 
porations of  other  States  that  we  find  these  contracts  forced  to 
the  front  and  fastened  upon  us  with  all  the  power  their  great 
'capital  gives  them.     It  is  the  Delaware,  Lackawanna  and  West- 


William  H.  Corbin. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         249 

ern  Railroad,  a  corporation  of  Pennsylvania,  that  is  to  day 
attempting  to  take  advantage  of  the  generosity  extended  to  a 
feeble  home  corporation  that  planned  to  run  a  little  railroad 
from  Morristown  to  Newark  fifty  years  ago." 

Such  arguments  as  these  spurred  the  Assembly  to  the  per- 
formance of  its  full  duty,  and  the  members  were  almost  unani- 
mously favorable  to  the  bill.  Assemblyman  Armstrong,  of 
Camden,  was  yet  anxious  to  give  the  company  until  May  20th 
to  pay  its  taxes,  with  the  penalty  of  being  dispossessed  of  its 
property  on  June  1st  for  non-compliance,  and  he  moved  an 
amendment  of  that  scope.  Assemblyman  Hudspeth  feared  that 
any  amendment  of  the  bill  might  cripple  it,  and  the  proposition 
was  not  at  that  time  entertained.  But  at  a  subsequent  meeting 
Mr.  Corbin  himself  tackei  on  an  amendment  providing  that  if 
the  company  before  June  Ist  filed  a  waiver  of  its  special  contract 
of  exemption  the  confiscating  act  should  not  go  into  effect. 
These  measures  brought  the  defiant  corporation  to  its  knees 
before  the  close  of  the  week,  and  it  eagerly  opened  up  negotia- 
tions with  the  State. 

The  first  proposition  was  to  exchange  its  tax  exemptions  for 
the  State's  right  to  take  its  property,  but  Governor  Green,  who 
took  up  the  battle  where  Governor  Abbett  had  dropped  it, 
exacted  more.  It  was  not  enough  that  it  should  agree  to  pay 
its  taxes  under  the  act  of  1884;  it  must  also  settle  the  arrear- 
ages to  which  Governor  Abbett's  special  message  of  1886  had 
called  attention.  The  company  made  a  wry  face  at  this  new 
penalty ;  but,  confronted  by  the  danger  of  the  loss  of  its  prop- 
erty, had  nothing  to  do  but  yield,  and  on  March  16th  Gov- 
ernor Green  notified  the  Legislature  that  the  company  would 
pay  its  taxes  for  1885  and  1886  without  any  further  dispute, 
and  submit  the  State's  claim  for  the  twenty  years  of  arrearages 
to  the  arbitration  of  two  men,  to  be  selected,  one  by  itself  and 
the  other  by  the  State. 

The  State  named  Frederic  W.  Stevens,  a  Newark  lawyer  of 
wide  reputation  in  Chancery  matters,  as  the  arbitrator  on  its 
side,  and  the  railroad  company  named  John  F.  Dillon,  a  noted 
New  York  railroad  lawyer,  on  its  side.     The  books  of  the  com- 


250  MODERN   BATTLES   OF  TRENTON. 

pany  were  subjected  to  the  most  careful  scrutiny  covering  the 
twenty  years  for  which  arrearage  moneys  were  claimed,  and 
months  were  spent  in  the  taking  of  testimony.  After  the  case 
had  been  submitted  on  both  sides,  the  arbitrators  made  fruitless 
attempts  to  agree,  and  it  was  at  one  time  feared  that  all  the 
work  and  money  put  upon  the  case  would  go  for  nothings 
Both  were  put  under  pressure,  however,  and  in  the  end  they 
reported  that  there  was  a  deficiency  of  a  trifle  over  $300,000  in 
the  company's  twenty  years'  payments.  The  State  was  inclined 
to  believe  that  Mr.  Dillon  had  overreached  Stevens  in  bringing 
about  this  agreement,  and  even  after  it  had  been  reached,  there 
was  a  disposition  to  decline  the  settlement.  The  compromise 
was  accepted,  however;  the  money  was  paid  over;  the  company 
settled  its  bills  in  accordance  with  the  Tax  laws,  acd  the  last  of 
the  monopoly-claimiog  corporations  surrendered  its  irrepealable 
exemptions  and  bowed  to  the  authority  of  the  Commonwealth. 

This  final  acceptance,  all  around,  of  the  new  Tax  act,  prac- 
tically marked  the  end  of  the  equal  tax  agitation,  and  there  i* 
ground  for  the  contention  that,  when  the  inquisitorial  preroga- 
tives of  the  State's  taxing  oflBcers  in  hunting  out  the  taxable 
assets  of  the  railroads,  is  taken  into  account  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  notorious  ease  with  which  the  taxable  personal  property 
of  the  individual  taxpayer  is  hidden  from  the  view  of  the  tax- 
gatherer  is  taken  into  account  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  sub- 
stantial equality  in  the  distribution  of  the  public  tax  burden 
between  the  two  classes  of  taxpayers.  The  railroads  pay  a 
smaller  rate  on  all  they  own ;  the  individual  taxpayer  pays  a 
higher  rate  on  less  than  he  owts.* 

The  meteoric  Cator  dropped  out  of  sight,  in  a  large  degree^ 
with  the  close  of  the  agitation  that  called  him  to  the  scene  of 
action.  In  spite  of  his  brilliancy  and  eloquence,  he  had  made 
an  erratic  record  in  the  Legislature  and  before  the  people.  Just 
as,  after  having  posed  as  an  uncompromising  anti- monopolist, 
he  had  risen  from  his  sick-bed  to  assist  in  the  passage  of  a 
Jersey  Central  Railroad  bill,  so  he  had  allied  himself  with  the 
Prohibitionists  before  an  election,  only  to  clamor  for  free  rum 

*See  Appendix  B. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         251 

from  his  seat  in  the  Assembly.  A  free-thinker  one  day,  he  was 
heard  of  the  next  as  a  figure  in  Methodist  experience  meetings. 
He  blew  hot  and  blew  cold  in  everything,  and  shifted  his  pose 
like  a  weather-cock,  at  every  turn  of  the  wind. 

The  last  view  his  admiring  neighbors  in  Jersey  City  had  of  him 
in  political  life  was  quite  as  dramatic  as  the  first  view  had  been. 
The  Republicans  nominal ed  him  for  a  sf  at  in  the  Board  of  Alder- 
men. The  Democrats  indorsed  him,  the  Auti- Monopoly  League 
declared  for  him,  the  Prohibitionists  wheeled  in  line  for  him, 
and  he  started  out  with  six  nominations  and  with  apparently 
what  the  politicians  would  call  a  "walk-over."  Two  nights 
before  election  a  little  handful  of  his  enemies  met  in  conference 
and  decided  to  put  Max  Salinger  in  the  field  as  a  candidate 
against  him.  Mr.  Salinger  went  into  the  fight  without  a  nomi- 
nation of  any  kind,  and  was  further  handicapped  by  his  ina- 
bility to  even  so  much  as  make  his  candidacy  publicly  known 
till  the  evening  before  election  day.  To  the  surprise  of  every- 
body, the  count  of  the  vote  showed  that  he  had  beaten  Cator, 
six  nominations  and  all,  by  an  overwhelming  majority. 

Mr.  Cator  subsequently  removed  to  San  Francisco,  where  he 
engaged  in  the  practice  of  the  law.  His  wife  and  himself  reog- 
niz9d  the  incompatibility  of  their  tempers,  and  an  amicable  sepa- 
ration between  them  left  Mr.  Cator  free  to  sue  for  the  hand  of  a 
milliona  re  widow,  whom  he  sub-equently  married.  He  engaged 
actively  in  politics,  warmly  espoused  the  cause  of  the  laboring- 
man,  and  quickly  made  himself  one  of  the  most  commanding 
figures  on  the  Pacific  coast.  Twice  he  was  within  an  ace  of 
being  sent  to  represent  California  in  the  United  States  Senate, 
and  at  this  writing  there  were  signs  that  he  might  become  a 
Populist  candidate  for  President  of  the  United  States. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

'  Which,  After  Referring  to  a  Fiery  Visitation  That  Gave  Newark 

Hope  of  Becoming  the  State  Capital,  Shows  Why  Mr. 

Kelsey  Didn't  Help  Blodgett  Reach  the 

Governorship  After  All. 


not  imagine  now  that  because  in  the  tracing  of  the 
story  of  the  memorable  battle  for  railroad  taxation, 
«*"^^  we  have  spanned  the  years  between  1884  and  1887, 
nothing  else  of  account  transpired.  The  period  was, 
on  the  contrary,  marked  by  some  unusual  excitements ;  and  it 
will  be  necessary  to  go  back  again  a  year  or  two  to  get  a  view 
of  them.  The  campaign  of  the  fall  of  1884  was  that  in  which 
Grover  Cleveland  was  first  elected  to  the  Presidency  of  the 
United  States.  Though,  speaking  generally,  it  was  a  good 
Democratic  year,  the  Republicans  succeeded  in  gaining  control 
of  both  Houses  of  the  Legislature.  The  majority  in  the  l^enate, 
however,  was  a  narrow  one,  with  a  single  vote  in  favor  of  the 
Republicans.  The  caucus  plan  was  to  elect  Senator  Griggs,  of 
Pasfaic,  to  the  Presidency,  but  Abram  V.  Schenck,  of  Middle- 
sex, was  ambitious  for  the  honor ;  and  Youngblood,  who  was 
disaffected  towards  Griggs,  joined  with  the  Democrats  and  put 
'  the  elderly  Middlesex  Senator  in  the  chair  for  the  session. 

The  Republican  press  denounced  both  Youngblood  and 
Schenck  for  having  refused  to  abide  the  issue  of  the  caucus,  and 
charged  that  Mr.  Schenck  had  entered  into  a  deal  with  the  Gov- 
ernor by  which,  in  return  for  the  Democratic  support  that  had 
given  him  his  position,  he  was  to  assist  the  Democrats  in  con- 
firming the  Governor's  nominees  for  State  offices.  This  explana- 
tion of  Mr.  Schenck's  election  was  in  a  measure  discounted  by 
the  fact  that  the  relations  between  Mr.  Youngblood  and  Gov- 
ernor Abbett  had  been  badly  strained  for  some  time  past,  and 
(252) 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.         253 


Youngblood  had  in  the  Senate  the  year  before  even  accused  the 
Governor  of  having  insulted  him.  The  presence  of  Mr.  Schenck 
in  the  chair  was  a  constant  source  of  irritation  to  the  Republi- 
cans, and  there  was  much  friction  between  his  friends  and  Mr. 
Griggs's  friends  all  through  the  session. 

The  majority  in  the  House  was  much  stronger,  and  E.  Ambler 
Armstrong  was  made  Speaker. 

The  Republican  plan  was  to  denude  the  Governor  of  as  many 
of  his  appointing  prerogatives  as  could  be  takeo  from  him,  and 
to  vest  the  joint  meeting,  which  was  Republican,  with  them. 
Some  of  their  partisan  bills  went  through  both  Houses  without 
much  trouble,  but  the  unfavorable  attitude  of  President  Schenck 
prevented  the  passage  of  the  more  aggressive  of  them. 

A  notable  feature  of  the  eession  was  the  attempt  of  the  Balti- 
more and  Ohio  Railroad  Company  to  secure  legislation  looking 
towards  the  construction  of  a  bridge  over  the  Kill  von  Kull. 
The  company  had  arranged  to  run  its  trains  over  the  kills  to 
Staten  Island,  and  complete  its  connection  with  New  York  by 
ferry  from  the  island.  The  State  made  opposition  to  the  scheme 
and  the  bill  the  company  had  prepared  failed  of  adoption. 

Just  as  the  Houses  were  getting  ready  to  adjourn  for  the  ses- 
sion all  the  front  part  of  the  capitol  building  was  destroyed  by 
fire,  and  the  incident  projected  an  unexpected  discussion  as  to 
the  location  of  the  State  Capital.  Assemblyman  Keasbey,  son 
of  United  States  District  Attorney  Keasbey,  who  then  repre- 
sented one  of  the  Essex  county  districts  in  the  Chamber,  made 
the  fire  the  pretext  for  the  introduction  of  a  bill  raming  New- 
ark as  the  capital  city  of  the  State,  and  a  fierce  strife  was  waged 
for  many  weeks  over  its  acceptance  or  rejection.  The  Trenton 
folks  would  not,  of  course,  listen  to  a  proposition  for  a  change 
calculated  to  rob  their  city  of  its  only  distinction,  while  Newark, 
as  the  most  populous,  enterprising  and  central  city  in  the  State, 
made  a  strong  pull  in  its  own  behalf.  At  a  public  meeting  held 
in  Newark  Senator  Fish,  ex- Judge  J.  Frank  Fort,  Harrison 
Van  Duyne,  Assemblyman  R.  Wayne  Parker,  Cortlandt  Parker, 
ex- Congressman  George  A.  Halsey,  Robert  H.  Ballantine,  Wil- 
liam Clark,  Theodore  Macknett,  Edward  Balbach,  Jr.,  Thomas 


254  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 

B.  Peddie,  Elisha  B.  Gaddis,  Gardner  R.  Colby,  George  J. 
Ferry,  James  Smith,  Jr.,  John  Blake,  George  B.  Jenkinson  and 
James  W.  Miller  were  appointed  a  committee  to  urge  Newark's 
claims  upon  the  Legislature.  The  committee  was  a  strong  and 
representative  one.  Elisha  B.  Gaddis  was  a  wholesale  grocer  of 
large  wealth,  and  a  big  factor  among  the  Republicans  of  Essex 
county.  Ballantine  was  a  millionaire  brewer.  Clark  was  of 
the  great  cotton-spinning  firm  of  world-wide  reputation.  Bal- 
bach  was  one  of  the  chief  gold  refiners  in  the  country,  of  enough 
importance  politically  to  be  a  Democratic  nominee  for  Congress. 
Smith  was  just  starting  out  for  the  United  States  Senate.  Ferry 
was  a  conspicuous  worker  in  the  Methodist  church,  and  after- 
wards Mayor  of  Orange  for  many  years.  Colby,  an  East  Orange 
magnate,  had  been  talked  of  as  a  gubernatorial  possibility. 
Peddie  and  Blake  had  been  Members  of  Congress,  and  Jenkin- 
son was  a  successful  business  man  of  Newark. 

The  movement  was  weakened,  however,  by  the  understanding 
that  ex-Secretary  Frelinghuysen  and  ex-Sheriff  William  Wright 
and  some  other  equally  well-known  Newark  residents  were  op- 
posed to  it.  Cortlandt  Parker  finally  declined  to  serve  on  the 
committee.  Mr.  Smith  threw  cold  water  on  the  project  by  ex- 
pressing his  doubt  as  to  the  ability  of  the  city,  because  of  her 
financial  condition  at  that  time,  to  contribute  as  she  ought  to  the 
expense  that  the  change  would  entail  upon  her.  The  support 
eventually  simmered  down  to  Senator  Fish  and  Judge  Fort,  who 
were  looked  upon  as  its  only  busy  promoters. 

When  Mr.  Ktasbey's  bill  made  its  re-appearance  in  the  House 
from  the  mill  of  the  committee,  under  rather  unfavorable  cir- 
cumstances, Chairman  Jewett  and  the  majority  of  the  committee 
reported  it  adversely.  Ktasbey  tried  to  save  it  with  a  minority 
report.  The  inimitable  Harrigan  made  a  droll  speech  that 
pleased  Keasbey  and  the  House,  and  succeeded  finally  in  getting 
it  upon  the  calendar.  When  it  came  up  for  second  reading  its 
chances  were  again  jeopardized  by  the  attempt  of  a  lot  of  other 
cities  to  secure  recognition.  Mr.  Corbin,  of  Union,  did  not  see 
why  Elizabeth  should  be  slighted,  and  he  wanted  it  amended  so 
that  the  commission  named  in  the  bill  might  be  left  free  to  select 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         255 


either  Newark  or  Elizabeth.  One  of  the  conditions  of  n  moval 
laid  down  in  a  companion  bill  was  that  the  new  capital  city,  if 
a  change  were  made,  should  contribute  $500,000  towards  the 
new  State  House,  which  afforded  Mr.  Caminade,  of  Trenton,  an 
opportunity  to  make  cruel  sport  of  Elizabeth's  bankruptcy.  He 
wanted  to  know  of  Corbin  "  where  Elizabeth  would  get  that 
$500,000,"  and  expressed  his  doubts  as  to  her  ability  to  raise 
$500.  Assemblyman  Wayne  Parker  made  a  beautiful  extem- 
poraneous speech  in  Newark's  behalf  during  the  progress  of  the 
discussion,  and  Franklin  Murphy,  another  of  the  bright  mem- 
bers of  the  Essex  delegation,  made  another  speech  of  the  same 
tenor.  It  met  the  opposition  of  rollicking  "  Ben  "  Braker,  of 
Camden,  and  of  William  H.  Grant,  of  Monmouth ;  and  Cami- 
nade made  a  fiery  speech  against  it,  and  it  was  defeated  by  a 
vote  of  27  to  25. 

Trenton  drew  a  long  sigh  of  relief,  and  prepar«:.d  to  put  on 
the  saved  State  building  the  handsome  front  that  now  adorns  it, 
while  the  people  of  the  State  prepared  to  select  a  new  master 
for  it. 

The  canvass  of  1886  brought  the  State  House  managers  and 
Governor  Abbett's  wing  of  the  party  into  conflict  for  the  last 
time.  It  was  specially  notable  from  the  political  standpoint 
because  it  resulted  in  strained  relations  between  Secretary  of 
State  Kelsey  and  ex-Senator  Henry  S.  Little,  who  were  the  sur- 
viving lights  of  the  State  House  autocracy.  The  passage  and 
enforcement  of  the  new  railroad  tax  law  had  embittered  the 
railroad  men  in  the  party  against  Governor  Abbett  and  his 
friends,  and  there  was  a  very  natural  desire  on  the  part  of  some 
of  the  railroads  whose  tax-bills  had  been  largely  increased  to 
overthrow  the  act.  Mr.  Abbett's  term  as  Governor  was  to 
expire  in  the  following  January,  and  there  was  opportunity  in 
the  naming  of  his  successor  for  them  to  secure  a  powerful  friend 
at  court ;  and,  as  the  Jersey  Central  Railroad  had  been  particu- 
larly conspicuous  in  contesting  the  act,  it  seemed  to  be  meet  and 
proper  to  them  that  the  political  opposition  to  the  Tax  Act  should 
be  reflected  in  the  choice  of  a  Jersey  Central  official  or  one  in 
sympathy  with  the  Jersey  Central  interests,  for  Governor. 


256  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 

Rufus  Blodgett,  the  Superintendent  of  the  New  York  and' 
Long  Branch  Railroad,  which  was  one  of  the  Jersey  Central's 
branches,  had,  while  in  the  Assembly,  won  a  reputation  for  him- 
self as  an  even-headed  public  man  with  some  shrewdness  as  a 
politician.  During  his  first  year  of  service  as  the  member  from 
Ocean  (Blodgett  served  in  1878,  1879  and  1880),  he  had  com- 
mended himself  to  Mr.  Kelsey  by  shielding  him  from  persecu- 
tion under  cover  of  an  investigation  which  some  of  Mr.  Kelsey 's 
factional  enemies  had  set  on  foot  against  him.  After  his  three 
years'  service  in  the  Assembly,  he  had  come  within  an  ace  of 
carrying  the  Republican  county  of  Ocean  for  the  Democrats  as 
their  candidate  for  State  Senator.  Altogether  he  was  looked 
upon  as  meeting  the  requirements  as  the  railroad  candidate  for 
the  Democratic  nomination  for  the  Governorship,  and  a  strong 
combination  was  made  to  put  him  at  the  head  of  the  ticket. 

His  friends  realized  that  they  had  made  a  good  stroke  for  him 
when  they  secured  Mr.  Kelsey 's  promise  to  assist  them.  Mr. 
Kelsey's  term  as  Secretary  of  State  was  about  to  expire,  and  he 
was  anxious  to  be  re-appointed.  Senator  McPherson,  who  was 
certain  to  be  a  decisive  factor  in  selecting  the  nominee  if  the 
other  faction  of  the  party  were  allowed  to  control  the  conven- 
tion, was  his  old-time  enemy.  Mr.  Kelsey  had  recently  given 
him  fresh  occasion  for  ill-feeling  by  making  known  the  sub- 
stance of  a  conversation  between  the  Senator  and  General  Sewell, 
which  an  eavesdropper  in  a  Philadelphia  hotel  claimed  to  have 
overheard.  Its  publication  right  on  the  eve  of  the  guberna- 
torial convention  was  made  with  the  evident  purpose  of  destroy- 
ing Senator  McPherson's  influence  in  the  party  and  preventing 
him  from  naming  the  new  gubernatorial  candidate. 

Mr.  McPherson's  friends  had  held  a  conference  at  some  place 
in  New  York,  and  had  agreed  upon  Robert  8.  Green,  of  Eliza- 
beth, who,  as  a  candidate  for  Congress,  had  recovered  the  Third 
district  for  the  Democrats,  after  Miles  Ross,  in  spite  of  his  com- 
manding position  as  leader  there,  had  been  defeated  by  John 
Kean,  Jr.  Mr.  Kelsey  took  it  for  granted  that  if  Green  were 
nominated  through  Senator  McPherson's  influence,  he  would 
also,  through  Senator  McPherson's  influence,  decline  to  renomi- 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         257 


nate  him  as  Secretary  of  State,  and  he  was  quite  ready  to  join 
hands  with  Blodgett  in  a  contest  against  Green.  Mr.  Kelsey 
had  never  gone  into  a  battle  without  the  aid  and  countenance  of 
ex-Senator  Little,  and  he  sought  that  gentleman  at  his  home  in 
Matawan  and  urged  him  to  assist  in  the  fight.  Having  gone 
out  of  the  State  House,  and  regarding  himself  as  measurably 
out  of  politics,  Mr.  Little  was  not  disposed  to  take  any  part  in 
the  controversy,  but  Mr.  Kelsey  argued  the  point  eloquently, 
and  finally  persuaded  him  not  only  to  aid  with  his  influence 
but  also  to  contribute  his  check  for  $5,000  to  the  success  of  the 
an ti- Green  crusade.  The  rivalry  between  the  two  factions  was 
so  strong  and  every  inch  of  ground  was  so  bitterly  contested, 
that  both  were  willing  to  see  the  State  convention  deferred  till 
the  latest  possible  moment ;  and  neither  side  objected  when  the 
State  Committee  fixed  a  day  toward  the  close  of  September  for 
its  assembling. 

When  the  delegates  reached  Trenton,  on  the  night  before  the 
designated  day.  Green's  friends  were  more  than  discomfited  to 
see  that  Blodgett's  nomination  would  be  the  likely  outcome  of 
their  deliberations.  Senator  McPherson,  Governor  Abbett, 
Miles  Ross  and  ex-Congressman  Pidcock  were  on  hand  strain- 
ing every  nerve  to  destroy  the  railroad  man's  lead,  but  all  their 
work  seemed  to  make  no  impression.  There  was  but  one  way 
to  compass  his  defeat — that  was  by  placing  an  enemy  of  Blodgett 
in  the  chair  at  convention  hall — one  who  had  the  skill,  the  nerve 
and  the  courage  to  hold  it  at  bay,  as  Abbett  had  held  the  Cleve- 
land Convention  at  bay,  till  it  gave  up  its  battle  against  his 
stronger  will. 

Where  was  this  dauntless  man  to  be  found  ?  And  how  was 
he  to  be  placed  over  the  convention  ?  It  was  the  province  of 
the  State  Committee  to  name  the  temporary  officers  of  the  con- 
vention, and  the  State  Committee  was,  to  a  large  extent,  still  at 
the  service  of  the  old  State  House  managers.  Blodgett  himself 
was  its  head.  It  looked  like  a  hopeless  struggle;  but  noses 
were  carefully  counted,  and  in  the  privacy  of  the  committee's 
meeting-room  the  two  factions  locked  horns  for  the  decisive  en- 
gagement of  the  campaign.     The  Green  contingent  went  to  the 

17 


258  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

front  with  a  demand  for  the  selection  of  Allan  L.  McDermott 
for  the  fateful  chairmanship.  The  Blodgett  wing  urged  the 
selection  of  Mr.  Blodgett  himself.  Perhaps  they  hoped  to  see 
the  delegates  surge  at  his  feet  as  they  had  once  seen  them  cluster 
at  Abbett's.  On  the  vote  there  was  a  tie,  with  Samuel  T.  Smith, 
the  committeeman  from  Sussex,  absent.  Icquiries  for  Smith 
aroused  inquiries  for  Mr.  Kelsey,  because  Kelsey  was  the  con- 
trolling factor  in  Sussex  and  Smith  owed  his  seat  on  the  com- 
mittee to  his  influence.  But  no  one  could  find  Mr.  Kelsey. 
Where  was  he?  And  why  hadn't  he  made  sure  of  Smith's 
presence  at  a  gathering  where  his  vote  was  of  such  importance 
in  a  campaign  of  Mr.  Kelsey 's  own  inspiration  ? 

No  one  knew.  The  town  was  scoured  for  him ;  all  the 
couriers  came  back  panting  and  perspiring,  but  without  tidings. 
Mr.  Little,  who  would  never  have  gone  into  the  canvass  but  for 
his  associate's  persuasive  tongue,  was  in  an  especially  anxious 
frame  of  mind.  He  hastened  with  rising  choler  from  one  to 
the  other  of  Mr.  Kelsey's  haunts,  but  in  none  had  the  much- 
sought  Secretary  been  seen.  The  free  use  of  the  wire  brought 
information,  however,  that  the  missing  committeeman  was  still 
at  his  home  in  distant  Sussex.  In  the  belief  that  when  he  ar- 
rived he  would  break  the  tie  in  McDermott's  favor,  the  Green 
men  telegraphed  to  Jersey  City,  directing  that  a  special  train  be 
hnrried  up  into  the  Sussex  hills  to  whirl  him  down  to  Trenton, 
and  the  State  Committee  hung  around  till  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning  to  await  his  arrival. 

And  when  he  stepped  in,  smiling  and  bowing — Mr.  Smith 
was  a  terribly  polite  little  gentleman  with  iron- gray  hair  and 
clerical  face  and  keen  black  eyes  and  mutton-chop  side  whiskers 
— he  was  not  ready  to  vote  for  McDermott ;  he  was  not  ready 
to  vote  for  Blodgett ;  in  fact,  he  had  a  man  of  his  own  choice 
to  urge  upon  his  astonished  fellows. 

Heigho !  That  was  significant.  Was  Mr.  Kelsey  wavering 
in  his  loyalty  to  Blodgett  that  this  close  political  ally  of  his  was 
not  ready  to  spring  to  Blodgett's  rescue?  Were  Kelsey's  disap- 
pearance and  the  indecision  of  this  personal  representative  of 
his  parts  of  one  game  ?     Could  it  be  possible  that  Smith  held 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  259 


aloof  from  either  side,  while  his  chieftain  was  bargaining  in 
secret  with  his  enemies?  "  Staff "  Little's  choler  rose  higher 
and  beads  of  anxious  perspiration  stood  on  his  forehead  as  he 
dashed  out  to  make  another  fruitless  hunt  for  his  ally  and  ask 
of  him  what  it  all  meant.  Meanwhile,  the  committee  flopped 
around  and  finally  hit  upon  ex- Congressman  "  Charley  "  Haight. 
Mr.  Haight  was  the  representative  of  the  Abbett  wing  of  the 
party.  He  was  quite  as  obnoxious  to  Blodgett  as  McDermott 
was.  Blodgett  declared  Haight's  selection  to  be  a  personal  af- 
front, and  put  his  request  for  a  reconsideration  of  the  nomina- 
tion on  such  strong  personal  grounds  that,  out  of  deference  to 
him,  the  committee  recalled  it,  and  finally  agreed  upon  John  W. 
Wescott,  of  Camden. 

After  Blodgett  had,  as  Chairman  of  the  State  Committee, 
called  the  State  Convention  to  order  in  Taylor  Opera  House, 
Judge  Wescott  took  the  chair  and  conducted  the  proceedings 
through  the  temporary  organization  phase.  Following  the  usual 
precedent,  a  committee  to  name  the  permanent  officers  was 
appointed,  and  during  the  recess  the  struggle  that  had  kept  the 
State  Committee  in  session  till  almost  daylight  was  entered  upon 
anew.  The  Blodgett  party  were  anxious  to  make  Orestes  Cleve- 
land the  permanent  Chairman  ;  the  Green  men  still  insisted 
upon  McDermott.  The  battle  was  a  brief  one.  By  the  votes 
of  fifteen  of  the  twenty-one  members  of  the  committee,  McDer- 
mott was  named.  The  observable  feature  of  the  contest  in  the 
Organization  Committee  was  the  fact  that  the  delegates  over 
whom  Mr.  Kelsey's  influence  was  supposed  to  be  supreme  did 
not  line  up  for  Orestes  Cleveland.  McDermott's  speech  in 
accepting  the  responsibilities  of  the  chair  was  an  attack  on  the 
railroad  corporations,  and  he  gave  it  a  particularly  personal  turn 
by  remarking  that  the  New  Jersey  Central  and  the  New  York 
and  Long  Branch  Railroads  had  not  paid  a  cent  into  the  State 
treasury  for  three  years.  When  nominations  were  declared  in 
order,  Beckwith,  of  Atlantic,  was  the  first  who  had  an  oppor- 
tunity on  the  alphabetical  roll-call  of  the  counties  to  respond 
with  a  name.  He  presented  that  of  Green.  Burlington  county 
came  forward  with  Hendrickson  and  Blodgett;  Camden  put 


Robert  S.  Green. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  261 

forward  the  name  of  Wescott ;  Cape  May  responded  with  John 
Hopper;  Essex  with  John  McGregor  of  Newark,  David  C. 
Dodd  of  Orange,  and  Andrew  Albright  of  Newark.  Passaic  broke 
into  a  deafening  tumult  over  contesting  delegations,  and  Wm.  D. 
Daly,  of  Jersey  City,  stirred  up  a  riot  when,  in  response  to  the 
call' for  Hudson,  he  answered  with  Green's  name.  A  dozen  of 
the  Hudson  delegates  sprang  to  their  feet  to  declare  that  the 
county  was  not  unanimous  for  the  Third  district  Congressman. 
Monmouth  put  Blodgett  in  formal  nomination  ;  Morris  honored 
Augustus  W.  Cutler  with  its  preference. 

And  the  roll-call  for  the  tallying  the  vote  was  entered  upon 
at  once.  Mr.  McDermott  knew  that  the  vote  of  the  Hudson 
delegation  was  the  vital  and  essential  one ;  and,  the  Hudson  men 
having,  after  their  county  chairman  had  announced  it  for  Green, 
sprung  to  their  feet  in  protest,  he  was  furnished  with  a  pretext 
for  passing  it  and  giving  its  members  an  opportunity  to  agree 
among  themselves  while  the  roll-call  of  the  other  counties  was 
being  completed.  The  Blodgett  men  listened  to  the  response 
from  the  delegations  representing  the  counties  where  Mr.  Kel- 
sey's  influence  was  most  active  with  mingled  surprise  and 
indignation.  One  after  the  other,  called  upon  to  announce  its 
choice,  was  marked  down  in  the  Green  column.  Hudson  was 
still  divided  and  warring ;  its  vote,  thrown  solidly  to  Blodgett, 
would  have  decided  the  battle  in  his  favor.  While  it  was  busy 
with  its  contentions,  the  Essex  delegation  yielded  to  the  pressure 
to  which  it  was  subjected.  The  three  favored  sons  whom  it  had 
put  in  nomination  had  no  chance  of  carrying  the  convention, 
and  James  F.  Connelly,  the  Chairman  of  the  delegation,  aroused 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  Green  men  by  the  announcement  that  he 
had  been  instructed  to  cast  the  one  hundred  or  more  votes  of 
the  delegation  for  Green.  The  coup  was  completed  when  the 
votes  of  both  the  Passaic  delfgations  were  tallied  up  for  the 
Union  county  man.  The  Blodgett  contingent,  wild  with  rage 
and  disappointment,  jumped  to  their  feet  with  noisy  protests. 
But  McDermott  insisted  that  the  tally  showed  a  majority  for 
Green,  and  formally  announced  him  as  the  candidate  of  the 
convention.     The  moment  he  made  the  declaration,  he  dropped 


262  MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON. 

his  gavel  on  the  table,  and,  declaring  the  convention  adjourned 
without  date,  prevented  the  Blodgett  men  from  appealing  from 
his  decision  and  securing  a  revision  of  the  tally  figures. 

The  rest  of  the  story  of  the  convention  fight  is  that,  on  the 
night  before  the  convention,  the  McPherson  party  had  discov- 
ered that,  with  the  delegates  whom  Mr.  Kelsey  could  control, 
Mr.  Blodgett  was  sure  to  secure  the  nomination.  Mr.  Kelsey 
had  been  sought  by  Supreme  Court  Clerk  Lee  early  in  the  even- 
ing and  taken  to  Mr.  Lee's  house.  Mr.  Lee  was  of  the  Mc- 
Pherson clan,  and,  anxious  to  see  Green  nominated,  he  had  sum- 
moned to  his  house  every  Democratic  leader  who  could  have 
any  influence  with  Mr.  Kelsey,  and  they  had  labored  through 
half  the  night  with  the  Secretary  in  Green's  favor.  He  was 
reluctant  to  listen,  but  they  made  him.  He  considered  what 
would  become  of  him  in  the  event  of  Green's  election.  Wouldn't 
he  be  deposed  from  the  handsome  State  offics  he  held?  Surely, 
after  the  bitter  rivalries  of  years,  culminating  in  the  publication 
of  the  overheard  Philadelphia  hotel  interview,  McPherson  would 
never  permit  Green  to  re-appoint  him  to  the  State  Secretaryship! 
The  throng  of  his  friends  re-assured  him.  They  put  themselves 
under  bonds  to  him  to  make  McPherson  consent,  unwilling  as 
he  would  doubtless  be.  And  Mr.  Kelsey  finally  yielded  to  their 
persuasions,  and  directed  the  delegates  who  were  responsive  to 
his  call  to  fall  in  line  for  the  Union  county  candidate. 

There  was  always  afterwards  a  speaking  acquaintance  between 
Mr.  Kelsey  and  Mr.  Little,  but  it  was  the  end  of  the  political 
alliance  that  had  existed  between  them  for  many  years.  By 
dissolving  their  political  ties  the  incident  disintegrated  the  State 
House  autocracy  forever  and  paved  the  way  for  the  complete 
ascendency  which  the  other  wing  of  the  party  maintained  to  the 
end  of  the  period  covered  by  this  narrative.  Mr.  Kelsey  be- 
came identified — never  closely,  however — with  the  new  rulers,, 
while  Mr.  Little,  unrelenting  to  the  end,  kept  up  his  bitter  war- 
fare upon  them.  Every  now  and  then  he  amused  himself  by 
riding  into  their  camp,  like  a  lone  bandit — armed  to  the  teeth 
with  charge  and  innuendo — and  spreading  dismay  and  terror  by 
his  presence. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  263 


The  Republican  convention  met  a  week  later,  with  ex-Senator 
Cattell  as  temporary  Chairman  and  William  Walter  Phelps  ae 
permanent  Chairman.  Gardner  R.  Colby,  of  East  Orange,  and 
Benjamin  F.  Howey,  who  had  carried  the  strongly  Democratic 
Fourth  district  for  Congress,  were  the  chief  competitors  for  the 
nomination.  General  Duncan,  of  Bergen,  and  Major  Carl  Lentz, 
of  Essex,  made  speeches  in  favor  of  Colby ;  Charles  Starr,  of 
Gloucester,  made  the  nominating  speech  for  Howey.  On  the 
first  roll-call  Howey  had  293  out  of  294  votes  needed  for  his 
nomination.  General  Sewell  added  Camden's  vote,  and  Mr. 
Phelps  formally  declared  Howey  the  choice  of  the  convention. 
The  nomination  was  regarded  as  a  strong  one  at  the  start,  bat 
the  Democrats  made  a  hustling  canvass  for  Green  and  came  out 
with  flying  colors. 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

'Which,  if  it  Anything  Like  Adequately  Describes  the  Defeat  of 

Governor  Abbett's  First  Attempt  to  Reach  the  United 

States  Senatorship,  Must  be  an  Excitinc4  One, 


I.  ABBETT'S  term  as  Governor  ended  in  January, 
1887.  The  term  of  General  Sewell  as  United  States 
Senator  was  to  end  in  the  following  March.  During 
all  of  his  service  in  the  gubernatorial  chair  it  had 
been  known  of  all  men  that  Governor  Abbett  aspired  to  succeed 
the  General,  and  by  popular  acclaim  the  dignity  he  sought  was 
voted  to  him  as  the  reward  of  his  efforts,  successful  in  both 
directions,  to  free  the  State  from  the  lien  of  the  monopoly 
exemptions,  and  keep  her  people  from  the  burden  of  a  State 
tax.  The  Democratic  canvass  for  ntw  State  Senators  and  new 
members  of  Assembly  had  been  made  in  the  preceding  fall  all 
over  the  State  with  the  understanding  that  if  the  joint  conven- 
tion of  the  two  Houses  were  Democratic,  Mr.  Abbett  was  to  be 
promoted  to  the  United  States  Senate.  It  was  understood 
beyond  that,  that  he  was  to  have  the  nomination  of  his  party 
caucus  wholly  as  a  tribute  to  his  skill  as  a  statesman  and  with- 
out forcing  him  to  resort  to  any  of  the  devious  devices  by  which 
United  States  Senatorships  are  too  often  won.  But  the  moment 
the  results  of  the  election  became  known  it  was  seen  that  com- 
plications that  might  keep  the  people's  gift  from  his  hands  were 
probable,  and  that  nothing  but  the  shrewdest  management  on 
his  part  could  save  it  to  him. 

The  new  Senate  was  to  consist  of  twelve  Republicans  and 
nine  Democrats.  In  the  House  there  were  thirty  Democrats, 
twenty- seven  Republicans,  and  two  men,  Donohue  and  Carroll, 
elected  in  Passaic  districts  by  the  joint  efforts  of  the  Democrats 
and  the  Labor  men.  Thus  fifty-nine  seats  were  accounted  for. 
(264) 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         205 


The  sixtieth  belonged  to  the  representative  of  the  Second  dis- 
trict of  Mercer  county.  The  candidates  there  bad  been  Josiah 
Jones,  on  behalf  of  the  Republicans,  and  Frederick  Walter,  on 
behalf  of  the  Democrats.  The  returns,  as  sent  in  on  election 
night  and  subsequently  confirmed  by  the  Board  of  Canvassers, 
had  shown  for  Walter  a  majority  of  two  over  Jones,  and  the 
canvassers  had  given  him  the  certificate  of  election.  Jones 
claimed  that  there  had  been  an  error  in  the  tally  of  the  votes 
and  he  applied  to  the  Supreme  Court  for  a  recount.  There  were 
gains  and  losses  on  both  sides,  and  at  the  end  of  it,  it  was  seen 
that  both  had  polled  the  same  number  of  votes.  Chief  Justice 
Beasley  declared  a  tie  and  refused  to  grant  the  court's  commis- 
sion to  either  of  the  candidates.  That  did  not,  however,  disarm 
Mr.  Walter.  He  still  held  the  certificate  the  canvassers  had 
given  him  for  such  use  as  he  could  make  of  it,  and  it  was  a  fore- 
gone conclusion  that  he  would  present  it  to  the  House  and  ask 
admission  to  his  seat. 

If  Walter  were  allowed  to  act  as  a  member,  his  vote  would 
make  the  thirty-first  and  controlling  Democratic  vote  in  the 
Assembly,  and  with  the  nine  Democrats  in  the  Senate  there 
were  forty  Democratic  votes  on  joint  ballot.  The  Republicans, 
with  twenty-seven  Assemblymen  and  twelve  Senators,  were  able 
to  muster  thirty- nine  votes  in  joint  meeting.  Neither  party 
had  the  forty-one  votes  required  to  control  the  joint  meeting 
and  elect  a  Senator,  and  the  two  Labor- Democrats  from  Paterson 
held  the  balance  of  power  between  them.  Their  alliance  with 
the  Republicans  would  give  the  Republicans  the  forty-one  votes ; 
if  they  joined  themselves  with  the  Democrats,  the  Democrats 
would  have  forty-two.  Both  of  them  were  therefore  eagerly 
sought  by  both  of  the  parties  for  expressions  of  their  sentiments. 
They  answered  that,  having  been  elected  as  Labor  men,  they  were 
under  no  obligation  to  either  of  the  big  parties,  aiul  that  they 
were  at  liberty  to  vote  in  the  senatorial  joint  meeting  as  they 
pleased.  The  necessary  implication  was  that  they  would  hold 
themselves  aloof,  and  Governor  Abbett's  friends  were  very  far 
from  securing  from  them  assurances  of  their  support. 


266  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 

With  forty  Democratic  votes  in  the  joint  meeting  assured^ 
Governor  Abbett's  friends  assumed  that  but  one  more  was 
needed  to  capture  the  Senatorship  for  him.  They  had  heard 
rumors  that  there  would  be  opposition  to  him  in  the  caucus,  but 
they  knew  that  he  had  the  majority  of  the  votes  there,  and  they 
took  it  for  granted  that  the  opposing  Democrats  would  be  bound 
by  the  action  of  the  caucus ;  and  there  was  a  mighty  struggle 
between  the  two  parties  for  more  votes.  Soon  after  the  election 
rumors  reached  Trenton  that  the  returns  in  the  Third  district  of 
Camden  county  were  to  be  attacked  in  Governor  Abbett's  in- 
terest. George  T.  Haines  had  been  the  Republican  candidate 
for  the  Assembly  there,  and  Henry  Turley  the  Democratic  can- 
didate. The  local  Board  of  Canvassers  had  declared  Mr.  Haines 
elected  by  forty-two  majority  and  given  him  the  certificate  of 
election.  Turley  claimed  that  a  recount  of  the  votes  would 
show  that  he  had  beaten  Haines,  and  upon  his  application  Jus- 
tice Joel  Parker  conducted  it.  The  reviewed  ballots  found  in 
the  box  in  which  the  people  of  Center  township  had  voted  and 
in  another  box  in  which  the  people  of  Waterford  township  had 
voted  disclosed  marked  variations  in  Turley's  favor  from  the 
tallied  returns,  and  Justice  Parker  allowing  them,  revoked 
Haines'  certificate  of  election  and  placed  the  court's  certificate 
in  Turley's  hands.  The  admission  of  Turley  to  his  seat  would 
reduce  the  Republican  vote  in  joint  meeting  to  thirty-eight  and 
advance  the  Democratic  vote  to  the  needed  forty-one. 

The  Republicans  loudly  insisted  that  the  vote  changes  noted 
in  Center  and  Waterford  had  been  manipulated  after  the  elec- 
tion, in  Abbett's  interest,  by  some  one  who  had  access  to  the 
boxes.  At  an  investigation  subsequently  set  on  foot,  it  was 
sworn  that  the  returns  had  been  carefully  canvassed  on  election 
night,  correctly  tallied  and  not  disputed ;  that  just  enough  ballots 
had  been  subsequently  changed  by  the  striking  of  Haines'  name 
from  them  and  the  writing  of  Turley's  name  as  a  substitute 
upon  them,  to  make  up  the  difference  upon  which  Judge  Parker 
had  reversed  the  result.  The  Republicans  insisted  that  the 
marks  upon  the  ballots  showed  that  they  had  been  changed  after 
the  count,  while  upon  the  string,  and  that  Turley's  name  on  all 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTOX.         207 

the  changed  ballots  was  in  the  same  handwriting.  Corrobo- 
rating these  intimations  of  fraud  was  the  presence  at  the  inves- 
tigation of  the  voters  in  the  two  townships  who  testified  that 
they  had  cast  their  ballots  for  Haines,  and  their  number  was 
precisely  equal  to  the  number  of  ballots  that  had  originally  been 
counted  for  Haines  by  the  two  election  boards.  The  inquiry  had 
a  sensational  culmination,  when  a  locksmith  named  Chambley, 
from  Philadelphia,  was  forced  to  admit  that,  one  dark  and  stormy 
night  soon  after  the  election,  he  had  been  hired  by  some  men  to 
go  to  a  distant  town  in  New  Jersey;  that  they  carried  him  to  a 
school-house  where  there  was  a  ballot-box,  and  that  he  had 
opened  it  so  that  they  could  get  into  it. 

As  the  time  for  the  opening  of  the  legislative  session  ap- 
proached, rumors  multiplied  that  even  if  the  Abbett  managers 
succeeded  in  seating  Walter  and  Turley,  they  would  have  diffi- 
culty in  holding  the  forty-one  Democratic  votes.  The  Gov- 
ernor's arch  enemy,  ex-Senator  Little,  had  been  busy  among  the 
Monmouth  members,  and  it  began  to  be  noised  around  that  Dr. 
Chattle,  the  Prohibition  Senator  from  that  county,  and  young 
Mr.  Throckmorton,  who  represented  one  of  the  districts  from  it 
in  the  Assembly,  were  prepared  to  defy  the  caucus.  William 
H.  Kays,  an  influential  factor  in  Sussex  county  politics  and 
another  bitter  foe  of  the  Governor's,  had  succeeded,  too,  in 
weakening  the  loyalty  of  Senator  McBride  and  the  bad-ejed 
Kinney,  the  Assemblyman  from  that  county.  It  was  the  com- 
mon anticipation  that  if  Abbett  failed  in  the  election.  General 
Sewell  would  win  the  prize  again,  and  Democratic  Senator 
Chase,  of  Middlesex,  who  was  in  the  employ  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad  Company  at  South  Amboy,  was  faid  to  be  ready 
to  give  him  whatever  assistance  he  could  without  making  too 
serious  a  break  from  his  party. 

There  were  just  as  ominous  rumblings  of  discontent  among 
the  Republicans  concerning  General  Sewell's  candidacy.  Among 
the  Republicans  elected  to  the  House  was  William  H.  Corbin, 
the  keen-witted  and  scholarly  lawyer  from  Elizabeth,  who  had 
given  Governor  Abbett  such  valuable  assistance  in  his  struggle 
with  the  Morris  and  Essex  Railroad  Company.     Corbiu  was 


268  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

one  of  the  best-equipped  legislators  that  ever  sat  in  the  Assem- 
bly, and  his  talents  gave  him  a  commanding  influence  among  his 
fellow-  members.  He  looked  upon  General  Sewell  as  a  leader 
whose  ways  were  not  always  along  the  most  popular  roads. 
General  Sewell's  friends  intimated  that  Mr.  Corbin's  cynical 
views  were  due  to  the  failure  of  the  General  to  assist  him  to 
reach  the  Speakership  in  1886,  but  Mr.  Corbin's  friends  refused 
to  believe  that  General  Sewell  had  taken  a  hand  in  that  fight 
against  him  ;  and  Corbin's  belief  that  Sewell  was  responsible  for 
more  than  one  party  defeat  was  popularly  accepted  as  the  expla- 
nation of  his  refusal  to  favor  Sewell's  re-election  to  the  United 
States  Senate.  Mr.  Corbin  emphasized  his  antagonism  to  the 
Camden  chieftain  by  refusing  to  go  into  a  formal  caucus  that  he 
knew  beforehand  would  put  the  General  in  nomination.  He 
was,  however,  in  frequent  canference  with  his  Republican  col- 
leagues, and  was  ready  to  aid  them  in  any  movement  to  defeat 
Abbett  with  some  one  else  than  Sewell.  Standing  with  Mr. 
Corbin  in  his  opposition  to  General  Sewell  were  Assemblyman 
Philip  Young,  of  Camden,  whose  constituents  had  pledged  him 
when  they  nominated  him  not  to  vote  for  Sewell,  and  Assembly- 
man Thomas  H.  Hawkins,  of  Cumberland. 

The  complications  on  both  sides  became  more  numerous  as 
the  hour  for  the  meeting  of  the  Houses  approached.  Assem- 
blyman Wolverton,  of  Hunterdon,  had  been  led  to  believe  that 
the  Abbett  influence  in  the  Democratic  caucus  would  be  exerted 
in  behalf  of  his  promotion  to  the  Speakership,  and  he  was 
chagrined  and  disappointed  when  he  saw  them  bend  all  their 
efforts  to  the  choice  of  Hudspeth,  of  Hudson.  His  Hunterdon 
colleague,  John  C.  Arnwine,  who  had  been  his  warm  champion 
in  the  contest,  shared  his  disappointment  with  him.  Assem- 
blyman Baird,  an  herb  doctor  and  compounder  of  patent  medi- 
cines, who  represented  one  of  the  Warren  districts,  had  also  set 
his  eye  upon  the  Speakership,  and  he  found  in  the  defeat  of  his 
ambition  a  motive  for  deserting  his  party's  standards.  He  and 
Wolverton  and  Arnwine  and  the  two  Paterson  Labor  men 
broke  from  the  Democratic  caucus  in  high  dudgeon  when 
Hudspeth  was  made  its  candidate  for  the  House  Speakership, 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  269 


and  offered  their  services  to  the  twenty- six  Republicans  who 
were  in  conference  at  the  same  time  in  the  Senate  Chamber. 
Glad  to  assist  any  movement  that  looked  to  the  defeat  of  the 
Abbett  programme,  the  Republicans  readily  a?seuted  to  take 
Baird  as  their  candidate  for  Speaker,  and  in  less  than  half  an 
hour  a  slate  had  been  made  up  for  the  organization  of  the 
Assembly  with  a  combination  of  anti  Abbett  Democrats  and 
Republicans  to  fill  the  offices  in  the  Chamber.  Besides  Baird  for 
Speaker,  the  Democrats  also  captured  the  Clerkship  for  Joseph 
Atkinson,  a  Newark  editor,  the  Sergeant-at-Arms  for  the  noto- 
rious and  irrepressible  Terry  McDonald.  The  Republicans  made 
the  diminutive  Herbert  Potts  Reading  Clerk,  and  secured  minor 
places  for  others  of  their  faith.  There  were  thirty-one  votes  in 
this  combination — a  majority  of  the  House  membership — and 
when  they  had  completed  their  organization  ticket  they  marched 
to  the  Assembly  Chamber  and  demanded  admission. 

The  Democratic  members  being  still  in  caucus,  the  doors  were 
barred ;  but  when  one  of  the  doorkeepers  drew  the  bolt  to  see 
who  was  outside,  they  forced  their  way  in  and  insisted  upon 
being  given  possession  of  the  room.  Assemblyman  Frank  M. 
McDermit,  of  Essex,  sat  at  the  Clerk's  desk  and  announced 
his  purpose  of  holding  it  against  all  comers.  He  was  of  stalwart 
build,  as  broad  as  he  was  long,  one  whom  nothing  could  daunt, 
and  no  one  was  disposed  to  undertake  to  dislodge  him.  A  riot 
was  imminent,  and  Lieutenant  Lane,  Sergeant  Sweeney  and 
Patrolman  Pilger,  of  the  local  police,  were  called  in  to  prevent 
disturbances.  The  Republicans  and  their  allies,  leaving  the 
Democrats  in  possession  of  the  main  hall,  flocked  into  the 
Speaker's  room  behind,  and  through  the  windows  admitted  those 
whom  they  had  selected  to  be  officers  of  the  House  and  scores 
of  fighting  partisans  whom  they  expected  to  aid  them  in  taking 
possession  of  the  Chamber.  Trenton  never  witnessed  such  a 
scene  of  excitement  as  supervened  when  the  Republican  cohorts 
rushed  in  from  the  Speaker's  room  to  carry  out  their  programme. 
Baird  was  declared  eleoted  to  the  Speakership  amid  an  awful 
clamor,  and  there  were  half  a  dozen  affrays  around  the  Speaker's 
desk  when  he  and  his  fellow-officers  approached  it.     Beckwith, 


270  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 

of  Atlantic,  loud  mouthed  and  combative  though  under  size, 
who  had  been  billed  by  the  Abbett  faction  to  take  the  chair  as 
temporary  Chairman,  undertook  to  keep  Baird  out  of  it  by 
force,  and  even  after  Baird  had  ascended  the  dais  in  spite  of  all 
the  opposition,  he  broke  the  gavel  before  he  had  reduced  the 
turbulent  crowd  to  even  a  semblance  of  order. 

The  next  morning  Assemblymen  Frank  M.  McDermit  and 
Michael  T.  Barrett,  both  of  Essex  and  both  Democrats,  ob- 
served that  neither  Walter's  nor  Turley's  names  had  been  en- 
rolled, and  a  fresh  tumult  ensued.  McDermit  and  John  P. 
Feeney,  a  Hudson  Democrat,  persuaded  Clerk  Atkinson  to  place 
the  roll  parchment  in  their  hands  for  inspection.  Their  purpose 
in  opening  it  to  receive  the  signatures  of  the  two  excluded  mem- 
bers became  apparent  a  few  minutes  later,  and  a  struggle  between 
Atkinson  and  them  ensued  for  its  possession.  Atkinson  suc- 
ceeded in  wresting  it  from  their  grasp  before  they  had  carried 
out  their  design,  but  in  the  affray  it  had  been  twisted  into  the 
shape  of  a  corkscrew,  and  in  that  condition  remains  to  this  day 
as  a  memento  of  the  excitement. 

Hudspeth,  when  quiet  was  restored,  moved  that  the  oath  be 
administered  to  Turley.  Cor  bin  was  on  his  feet  in  an  instant 
to  protest  that  Turley 's  path  to  his  seat  was  paved  with  fraud, 
and  the  dark-visaged  Armstrong,  of  Camden,  argued  against  the 
motion,  too.  The  crowd  listened  to  the  responses  of  the  mem- 
bers with  bated  breath.  A  great  cheer  for  the  Knights  of  Labor 
shook  the  building  when  Donohue  voted  for  the  motion.  Car- 
roll's vote  in  the  same  direction  evoked  another  whirlwind  of 
Democratic  applause.  The  motion  had  been  carried  by  a  vote 
of  30  to  28.  An  angry  crowd  of  anti- Abbett  men  surrounded 
the  desks  of  the  two  Labor  Assemblymen,  and  roundly  de- 
nounced them.  The  circumstance  provoked  Donohue  to  a 
speech,  in  which  he  declared  himself  a  Democrat  of  the  Jeffer- 
sonian  stripe,  and  a  Republican  of  the  Lincoln  stripe,  and,  bound 
by  no  obligations  to  either  party,  he  asserted  his  right  to  vote  as 
his  independent  judgment  advised  him.  Turley  had  scarcely 
been  sworn  before  Walter  was  permitted  to  sign  the  roll. 

The  Senate  had  not  yet  organized.     It  had  met  on  the  first 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.         271 

day  and,  without  swearing  in  any  of  the  newly- elected  Senators, 
had  adjourned  for  a  week  at  a  time.  Its  Republican  majority 
stood  aloof  awaiting  the  developments  of  the  Assembly  contests. 
They  had  watched  with  special  interest  the  movements  which 
resulted  in  the  seating  of  Turley  and  Walter,  and  when  that 
had  been  accomplished  they  still  stood  aloof  to  watch  the  un- 
folding of  the  rest  of  the  Democratic  programme.  Not  all  of 
the  Republican  leaders  were,  however,  satisfied  with  this  inac- 
tion, and  their  pressure  led  to  a  conference  toward  the  close  of 
January  in  Senator  Cranmer's  room. 

Chief  among  the  conferees  were  United  States  Senator  Sewell, 
€x-CongressmaQ  George  A.  Halsey,  of  Newark,  Garret  A. 
Hobart,  the  Republican  leader  in  Passaic,  and  ex- United  States 
Senator  Alexander  G.  Cattell.  General  Sewell  called  attention 
to  the  fact  that  the  Democrats  had  in  contemplation,  besides  the 
contests  in  the  Camden  and  Mercer  districts,  the  unseating  of 
Peck  of  Essex,  Hawkins  of  Cumberland,  Doron  of  Passaic,  and 
Ackerman  of  Bergen,  and  he  inveighed  against  the  wisdom  of 
organizing  until  the  Democrats  had  given  assurances  that  these 
gentlemen  should  not  be  disturbed.  Senators  Griggs,  Thomp- 
son and  Fish,  on  the  other  hand,  were  warmly  in  favor  of  im- 
mediate organization.  Notwithstanding  their  pressure,  the 
Senate  did  not  organize  until  a  week  later. 

Meanwhile  the  time  fixed  by  the  United  States  statute  for  the 
assembling  of  the  two  Houses  in  joint  convention  to  choose  a 
United  States  Secator  had  rolled  around,  and  the  Assembly  held 
a  semblance  of  a  joint  meeting  with  the  Democratic  minority 
of  the  Senate.  The  only  formal  candidate  before  them 
was  Governor  Abbett,  who  had  been  named  as  the  Democratic 
caucus  nominee.  Throckmorton  seized  the  opportunity  to  defy 
the  caucus  at  a  time  when  it  could  not  do  much  harm.  He 
said,  in  an  address  which  he  made  at  his  desk,  that  the  time  had 
not  yet  arrived  when  he  considered  himself  committed  as  to  his 
choice  for  the  distinction,  nor  would  he  be  committed  by  others 
until  his  own  judgment  dictated  to  him  what  was  for  the  best 
interests  of  the  party ;  and  for  the  purpose  of  showing  his  dis- 
sent from  the  action  of  the  party,  which  had  made  Abbett  the 


272  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

nominee,  he  put  ex-Governor  Joseph  D.  Bedle  in  formal  nomi- 
nation. Of  the  thirty- nine  Democrats  in  the  meeting,  Abbett 
received  the  votes  of  thirty-eight;  Throckmorton's  alone  was- 
cast  for  Bedle. 

The  last  day  of  January  had  been  reached  before  the  Senate 
organization  was  effected.  Frederick  S.  Fish  was  made  Presi- 
dent and  Richard  B.  Reading  was  chosen  to  sit  at  the  Secretary's 
desk.  It  was  two  weeks  later  when  the  Republicans  succeeded 
in  holding  their  joint  caucus.  General  Sewell  had  a  vast  pre- 
ponderance among  them,  and  was  made  the  party's  candidate 
against  Abbett.  But  Assemblymen  Corbin,  Young  and  Haw- 
kins withdrew  from  the  caucus.  Assemblymen  Hill,  of  Essex, 
and  Chamberlain,  of  Union,  were  also  indisposed  to  accept 
Sewell's  candidacy,  but  they  were  finally  persuaded  to  act  with 
their  party  colleagues. 

A  second  joint  Democratic  caucus  was  held  the  same  night. 
Senators  Chattle  and  Chase,  and  Assemblymen  Kinney  and 
Peck,  were  conspicuous  by  their  absence.  Kinney  was  said 
to  be  in  Philadelphia,  in  communication  with  the  Republicans, 
and  was  roundly  abused  by  his  disappointed  fellow  Democrats 
as  the  meanest  kind  of  a  traitor.  Governor  Abbett  was  again 
made  the  choice  of  the  caucus,  but  these  defections  from  the 
camp  only  served  to  emphasize  the  embarrassments  that  attended 
his  candidacy. 

The  first  attempt  to  hold  a  joint  meeting  of  the  regularly- 
organized  Houses  was  made  on  the  following  day  (Tuesday,  the 
15th),  and  the  Republicans  thought  they  had  everything  pre- 
pared for  Abbett's  defeat.  "When  the  Democrats  had  counted 
noses,  before  going  to  the  Assembly  Chamber,  they  discovered 
that  three  of  their  members  were  absent  and  suspected  that 
their  absence  had  been  arranged  by  their  Republican  rivals. 
They  abstained,  therefore,  from  proceeding  to  the  joint  meeting, 
and  when  President  Fish  called  for  order  in  the  Assembly 
Chamber,  Speaker  Baird  was  the  only  Democratic  Assemblyman 
in  attendance.  The  Republicans  were  all  there — Carroll  and 
Donohue,  the  two  Paterson  Labor  men,  with  them.  President 
Fish  held  the  joint  meeting  open  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  to 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         273 


await  the  presence  of  the  other  members,  and  then,  after  a  pro- 
test had  been  entered  against  their  absence,  declared  the  meeting 
adjourned  for  the  day.  The  Democrats,  having  meanwhile  cor- 
ralled the  absent  three,  flocked  into  the  Chamber  just  as  the 
joint  meeting  rose,  and  insisted  upon  being  recorded  as  present, 
but  President  Fish  told  them  that  it  was  too  late. 

When  the  joint  meeting  assembled  the  following  day,  a  bitter 
and  exciting  controversy  between  the  spokesmen  of  the  two  par- 
ties over  the  participation  of  Assemblymen  Turley  and  Walter 
in  the  proceedings  delayed  the  taking  of  a  ballot.  The  floor, 
aisles  and  galleries  of  the  Chamber  were  packed  to  suffoca- 
tion, and,  as  every  man  in  the  crowd  was  a  partisan,  the  stormy 
scenes  that  ensued  almost  culminated  in  a  riot.  Senator  Griggs, 
of  Passaic,  precipitated  the  controversy  by  rising  to  read  a  pro- 
test against  the  right  of  Turley  and  Walter  to  cast  ballots  in 
the  senatorial  contest.  Mr.  Hudspeth,  the  Democratic  leader  on 
the  floor,  attempted  to  choke  him  off  with  the  point  of  order 
that  nothing  was  in  order  save  the  casting  of  the  ballots  for 
United  States  Senator ;  but  President  Fish  went  to  Mr.  Griggs' 
aid  with  the  ruling  that  a  protest  against  the  right  of  two  usur- 
pers to  participate  in  the  discharge  of  the  high  function  that 
then  devolved  upon  the  Legislature,  was  a  question  of  the  high- 
est privilege. 

"  Such  a  motion,"  he  concluded,  in  the  midst  of  the  most 
indescribable  confusion,  "  is  always  in  order,  and  the  Senator 
from  Passaic  will  proceed  with  the  reading  of  the  protest." 

Hudspeth  attempted  to  appeal  from  the  decision  of  the  chair, 
but  Fish  declined  to  entertain  the  appeal.  The  great  throng 
broke  into  tumult  at  once.  The  Republicans  cheered  ;  hundreds 
of  Abbett's  partisans  in  the  galleries  hissed  and  groaned.  Assem- 
blyman Phil.  Tumulty,  of  Hudson,  leaped  to  the  top  of  his 
desk,  and,  shaking  his  clenched  fist  at  Fish,  denounced  him  in 
ribald  language.  Beckwith  darted  down  the  aisle,  and  with  one 
foot  on  the  step  leading  to  the  Speaker's  dias,  called  Fish  a  cow- 
ardly cur,  and  threatened  that  unless  he  reversed  his  decision  he 
would  drag  him  from  his  place  and  throw  him  out  of  the  Cham- 
ber.    Edward  T.  McLaughlin,  another  Hudson  Assemblyman, 

18 


274  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

hurled  oaths  at  the  President  that  were  heard  even  above  the 
prevailing  din.  Fish's  face  was  pale  with  excitement,  but  his 
jaw  was  set,  and  he  let  them  threaten  without  replying,  while 
Griggs  went  on  with  the  reading  of  the  protest.  When  he  had 
finished  it,  he  walked  with  a  defiant  air  to  the  Clerk's  desk^ 
pushed  his  way  through  the  throng  gathered  around  it,  and 
placed  the  paper  in  Secretary  Reading's  hands. 

Senator  Edwards,  of  Hudson,  immediately  made  a  motion 
that  the  protest  be  expunged  from  the  minutes,  arguing  that  the 
House  alone  was  the  judge  of  the  return  and  election  of  its 
members,  and  that  the  Senate  had  no  right  to  question  Turley's 
title  to  his  seat  after  the  House  had  passed  upon  it.  Clerk 
Atkinson,  who  assisted  Mr.  Reading  at  the  Secretary's  desk, 
called  the  roll.  Speaker  Baird  and  the  two  Labor  men  voted 
with  the  Republicans,  and  succeeded  in  keeping  the  protest  on 
the  record.  And,  on  the  plea  that  the  confusion  that  prevailed 
while  Mr.  Griggs  was  reading  had  made  it  impossible  for  the 
members  to  hear  it,  the  majority  proceeded  to  make  it  more  un- 
comfortable for  the  Abbett  men  by  directing  that  it  be  read' 
again  from  the  Secretary's  desk,  and,  by  an  irony  of  fate,  the 
function  of  reading  it  fell  to  the  lot  of  House  Clerk  Atkinson,, 
who  was  one  of  the  most  devoted  adherents  of  Abbett  in  the 
throng.  Atkinson  managed  to  swallow  his  indignation  long 
enough  to  stumble  through  it,  and  when  he  had  laid  it  aside  he 
made  himself  the  center  of  attraction  by  excitedly  charging  that 
Secretary  Reading,  his  Republican  superior  at  the  desk,  had 
tampered  with  the  tally  list.  A  re-call  of  the  roll  disproved 
the  Clerk's  suspicions,  and  the  vote  of  forty- one  to  forty  pinned 
the  protest  forever  to  the  record  of  the  proceedings. 

When  the  protest  had  been  disposed  of  a  formal  vote  for 
United  States  Senator  was  taken.  On  the  ballot  General  Sewell 
had  thirty-five  Republican  votes  and  Governor  Abbett  thirty- 
five  Democratic  votes.  Besides  these,  Chattle  and  Throckmor- 
ton, Democrats,  voted  for  ex- Governor  Bedle;  Chase,  Democrat, 
for  ex-Governor  George  C.  Ludlow;  McBride  and  Kinney, 
Democrats,  for  Thomas  Kays ;  Carroll  and  Donohue,  the  Labor 
men,  for  Erastus  E.  Potter,  a  Port  Oram  schoolmaster  who 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  275 


had  made  himself  conspicuous  as  an  orator  on  the  Labor  plat- 
form and  the  year  before  as  the  Labor  candidate  for  Governor ; 
Baird,  Democrat,  for  William  H.  Morrow,  of  Warren  ;  Corbin, 
Republican,  for  Cortlandt  Parker;  Hawkins,  Republican,  for 
William  E.  Potter,  and  Young,  Republican,  for  Frederic  A. 
Potts. 

The  ballot  showed  substantially  the  same  division  of  senti- 
ment on  both  sides  as  it  was  taken  from  day  to  day  for  the  next 
two  weeks,  and  slight  tumults  marked  every  convention  of  the 
two  Houses.  Because  of  his  position,  Baird  was,  of  course,  the 
chief  object  of  attack  by  the  Abbett  men,  and  on  the  23d  day 
of  February  Allan  L.  McDermott,  in  the  hope  probably  of 
bluffing  him,  sent  to  him  by  a  messenger  a  brief  note  asking  "  a 
plain  question — whether  or  not  you  will  vote  for  a  Republican 
for  Senator." 

"  I  will  answer  your  question  '  when  the  swallows  homeward 
fly,' "  was  the  response  which  Baird  traced  in  pencil  on  the  back 
of  Mr.  McDermott's  note. 

On  the  following  day  an  attempt  was  made  to  put  a  resolu- 
tion through  the  Assembly  denouncing  Baird  as  a  traitor  to  his 
party,  and  calling  upon  him  to  resign,  but  it  was  defeated,  with 
the  aid  of  Carroll  and  Donohue,  by  a  vote  of  thirty  to  twenty- 
nine.  Even  Wolverton  was  aroused  to  denunciation  of  him 
for  his  course.  From  his  seat  in  the  House  one  day  he  regretted 
that  he  had  helped  to  put  the  Warren  pill-maker  in  the  Speaker's 
chair,  because  he  had  noted  that  Baird  had  thrown  all  his  in- 
fluence with  the  Republicans. 

"And  between  me  and  my  God,"  shouted  Wolverton,  with 
uplifted  hands,  "  no  such  contract  was  made  when  he  was  placed 
in  the  chair ;  and  I  now  say  that  I  am  ready  by  voice  and  vote 
to  put  another  Speaker  in  the  chair." 

All  the  efforts  to  depose  Baird  were  unavailing,  however,  and 
the  proceedings  in  the  Assembly  Chamber  continued  to  be 
marked  by  a  succession  of  affrays. 

All  this  time  the  disaffected  Democrats  were  endeavoring  to 
patch  up  a  bargain  with  the  Republican  caucus  in  favor  of  elect- 
ing another  Democrat  than  Abbett.     Several  conspicuous  anti- 


276  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

Abbett  names  were  canvassed.  That  of  ex-Governor  Bedle  was 
the  most  prominent  among  them ;  that  of  Thomas  Kays  stood 
next,  and  a  portentous  figure  in  the  background  was  that  of 
old  Senator  Hezekiah  Smith,  of  Burlington,  a  big,  burly  six- 
footer,  who  had  led  a  career  that  was  equally  disreputable  and 
picturesque.  He  carried  a  rugged  mind  in  a  rugged  body,  and 
in  the  sixty  years  of  activity  that  he  had  enjoyed  up  to  the  time 
that  he  came  into  the  State  Senate  of  New  Jersey  he  had  made 
himself  an  effective  political  factor  in  two  States. 

Originally  a  blacksmith  at  Rutland,  Vermont,  he  had  suc- 
ceeded in  acquiring  a  competence  there  and  lived  in  handsome 
style  with  his  wife  and  three  children.  His  active  participation 
in  public  affairs  had  led  to  his  election  to  Congress  as  one  of  the 
representatives  of  the  Green  Mountain  State.  At  the  close  of 
his  term  he  suddenly  disappeared  from  among  his  neighbors, 
and  for  years  and  years  his  family  were  unable  to  secure  any 
tiding  concerning  him.  Not  till  they  learned  that  a  certain 
Hezekiah  B.  Smith  had  been  elected  to  represent  one  of  the 
New  Jersey  districts  in  Congress  had  they  any  idea  as  to  his 
whereabouts.  The  event  showed  that  he  had  gone  down  to 
Burlington,  New  Jersey,  from  Vermont,  and  started  in  to  make 
his  fortune  anew.  He  soon  acquired  money  enough  to  enable 
him  to  build  a  large  manufacturing  establishment  just  outside 
of  the  city  of  Burlington,  and  it  became  the  center,  eventually, 
of  a  busy  town,  to  which  he  gave  the  name  of  Smithville. 
Soon  recognized  as  a  wealthy  man,  he  wedded  himself  to  an. 
ambitious  woman,  fond  of  show,  and  made  her  the  mistress  of 
one  of  the  handsomest  estates  in  the  Commonwealth.  When 
his  business  was  able  to  run  itself  without  his  personal  attention, 
he  plunged  into  politics,  and  in  1879  was  elected  to  Congress 
from  the  Second  district.  His  colleagues  were  George  M. 
Robeson,  Grant's  noted  Naval  Secretary ;  Miles  Ross,  the  poten- 
tial Middle  State  Democratic  boss ;  Alvah  A.  Clark,  an  oily- 
tongued  Somerville  lawyer ;  Charles  H.  Voorhis,  of  Bergen ; 
John  L.  Blake,  of  Essex,  and  Lewis  A.  Brigham,  who,  with 
Isaac  W.  Scudder,  enjoyed  the  distinction  of  being  the  only  Re- 
publicans who  ever  represented  Hudson  county  in  Congress. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         277 


When  old  Hezekiah  Smith's  family  in  Vermont  learned  of  the 
election  of  a  man  of  that  name  to  Congress  from  New  Jersey, 
Mrs.  Smith  sent  her  eldest  son  to  Burlington,  to  learn  whether 
he  was,  indeed,  her  long- missing  husband.  The  boy  knew  his 
father  in  the  gruif  old  man  whom  he  met,  but  Smith  brazenly 
denied  that  he  had  ever  seen  the  boy  before,  and  the  woman  in 
the  stately  mansion  at  Smith ville  turned  him  out  of  doors  after 
the  coarsest  vilification  of  his  mother.  Smith  absolutely  re- 
fused to  recognize  his  Vermont  family,  and,  for  the  honor  of 
her  children,  Mrs.  Smith  abstained  from  pursuing  him. 

It  was  only  after  his  death  that  the  scandal  of  his  life  came 
to  the  surface,  and  his  indignant  sons,  who  had  meanwhile 
achieved  station  themselves,  scorned  to  touch  a  dollar  of  the 
million  he  left  behind  him.  For  some  reason  or  other.  Smith 
was  not  re-nominated  for  Congress,  and  in  1883  he  turned  up 
as  the  spokesman  for  Burlington  on  the  floor  of  the  State 
Senate.  When  Abbett  came  to  the  Governorship  in  1884,  the 
old  man  put  in  a  claim  to  him  for  recognition  as  the  channel  for 
the  distribution  of  official  favors  in  his  section  of  the  State. 
Governor  Abbett  did  not  "  cotton  "  to  him,  and  there  was  even- 
tually an  open  rupture  between  them  over  the  appointment  of 
the  Prosecutor  of  Pleas  for  Burlington  county.  Smith  insisted 
upon  the  appointment  of  the  man  of  his  selection,  and  the 
Governor  refused  to  yield.  The  old  man  was  an  obstructionist 
from  that  time  on.  He  was  eternally  in  the  Governor's  light ; 
and  when  Abbett  tried  to  elect,  as  the  new  Senator  from  Bur- 
lington, a  man  favorable  to  himself,  old  Smith  went  into  the 
polls  against  him  and  helped  the  Republicans  to  elect  William 
H.  Carter  over  him.  The  old  man  boasted  with  a  swell  of  pride 
and  satisfaction  that  he  had  spent  $70,000  to  defeat  Abbett 
candidates  for  South  Jersey  seats  in  the  Senate  and  Assembly, 
and  that  he  would  spend  $100,000  more  to  keep  him  out  of  the 
United  States  Senate. 

He  thought  he  saw  his  opportunity  when  the  revolt  broke 
out  against  Abbett  in  the  Democratic  caucus.  Moved  partly  by 
revenge  and  partly  by  ambition,  he  announced  himself  as  a 
candidate  for  United  States  Senator  against  Abbett,  and  was  one 


278  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

of  the  figures  in  the  deal  between  the  Republicans  and  the  dis- 
aifected  Democrats. 

Throckmorton  and  the  handful  of  allies  who  were  wielded  by 
the  same  influences  that  reached  him,  were  more  disposed  to  ex- 
Governor  Bedle.  The  little,  round,  sunny-faced  object  of  their 
adoration  was,  however,  scarcely  in  consenting  humor.  Ex- 
Governor  Bedle  seemed  to  be  perfectly  willing  to  allow  his  name 
to  be  toyed  with  as  long  as  it  could  serve  any  purpose  as  a  foil 
to  the  movements  of  the  Abbett  managers,  but  he  was  not  un- 
derstood to  be  at  any  time  an  active  aspirant.  On  one  of  the 
ballots  he  had  the  votes  of  Chamberlain,  Cranmer,  Griggs,  Luf- 
burrow,  Oviatt,  Republicans,  and  of  Baird,  Chattle  and  Throck- 
morton, Democrats.  And  towards  the  end  it  was  understood 
that  the  mass  of  Republicans  would  go  to  his  aid,  and  that  the 
Senatorship  was  within  his  reach.  The  sentiment  within  the 
Republican  caucus  was  not,  however,  enthusiastic  for  him  in 
some  quarters,  and  the  Democratic  bolters  began  to  look  around 
for  a  candidate  who  could  more  firmly  unite  them. 

Finally,  it  was  suggested  that  it  might  not  be  unwise  for  the 
anti- Abbett  men  to  revenge  themselves  upon  him  with  a  man 
upon  whom  he  had  himself  trampled,  and  thus  there  came  into 
the  canvass  furtive  whispers  of  Rufus  Blodgett's  name.  Mr. 
Blodgett  was  looked  upon  as  not  a  particularly  brilliant  states- 
man, but  as  a  level-headed  and  square-toed  kind  of  a  man,  and, 
besides,  he  could  reach  railroad  influences  that  were  not  accessible 
to  a  Pennsylvania  Railroad  candidate.  He  was  a  Jersey  Central 
man ;  had  grown  up  from  a  brakeman  to  be  Superintendent  of 
the  New  York  and  Long  Branch  Railroad,  and  the  prevailing 
belief  that  Abbett  had,  through  McDermott,  cheated  him  out  of 
the  gubernatorial  nomination  the  year  before,  singled  him  out 
as  bitterly  unacceptable  to  the  Abbett  party. 

The  Republicans  had,  as  already  stated,  given  the  nomination 
to  General  Sewell,  but  the  continued  refusal  of  Messrs.  Corbin, 
Hawkins  and  Young  to  act  with  their  party  led  to  the  idea  that 
some  other  Republican  would  have  a  better  chance.  Both  Mr. 
Abbett  and  General  Sewell  were  advised  to  withdraw  from  the 
scene.     But  the  Senatorship  had  been  the  chief  goal  of  Mr. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         279 


Abbett's  ambition ;  the  hope  of  reaching  it  had  alone  reconciled 
him  to  his  three  years'  service  in  the  Governorship,  and  when- 
ever he  was  approached  with  a  proposition  of  withdrawal  he  set 
his  teeth  firmly  and  said  "  no  "  with  ferocious  energy.  General 
Sewell  was  almost  as  reluctant  to  drop  his  pursuit  of  the  gaudy 
honor,  but  when  he  saw  that  Corbin,  Hawkins  and  Young  were 
impervious  to  all  the  influences  with  which  he  could  surround 
them,  he  yielded  to  importunity  and  agreed  to  step  aside. 

William  Walter  Phelps,  the  shining  statesman  of  Bergen 
<30unty,  who  had  brought  luster  upon  his  name  and  the  State  as 
well,  during  his  service  in  Congress  as  the  representative  of  the 
Fifth  district,  was  now  summoned  to  the  front  as  the  coming 
man.  Donohue  and  Carroll  represented  districts  that  were  in 
the  boundaries  of  Mr.  Phelps'  own  Congressional  district,  and 
Mr.  Phelps'  friends  had  an  idea  that  they  could  put  sufficient 
local  pressure  upon  them  to  induce  them  to  join  with  the  Repub- 
licans in  electing  him.  The  formal  nomination  was  never  taken 
away  from  General  Sewell  by  the  caucus,  but  it  was  generally 
understood  among  the  Republican  members  that  if  Donohue 
and  Carroll  responded  with  Mr.  Phelps'  name  in  joint  meeting, 
all  of  the  Republican  members  were  to  turn  in  and  make  his 
election  sure. 

Meanwhile,  the  Throckmorton  bolters  from  the  Democratic 
caucus  were  using  their  best  endeavors  to  persuade  the  Republi- 
can caucus  to  join  with  them  in  the  election  of  either  Bedle  or 
Blodgett.  The  Republicans  were  as  anxious  to  beat  Abbett  as 
the  others  were,  and  their  arguments  did  not  fall  on  entirely 
deaf  ears.  The  Republican  caucus  stood  firmly,  however,  for  a 
Republican  candidate  till,  one  day,  after  the  deadlock  had  con- 
tinued for  several  weeks,  the  Throckmorton  party  served  notice 
on  them  that  they  were  being  subjected  to  a  terrific  pressure  for 
Abbett,  and  that  unless  the  Republicans  helped  them  to  break 
the  deadlock  by  four  o'clock  the  next  day  they  would  be  obliged 
to  help  their  Democratic  colleagues  elect  the  Governor  to  the 
coveted  position.  The  Republican  caucus  met  this  announce- 
ment by  sending  a  committee  to  the  Democratic  independents 
asking  them  to  submit  three  names  of  anti- Abbett  Democrats 


William  Walter  Phelps. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         281 

for  whom  they  would  vote,  and  they  responded  with  the  names 
of  Rufus  Blodgett,  Thomas  H.  Kays,  of  Sussex,  and  old  Heze- 
kiah  Smith,  of  Burlington. 

When  the  Republicans  went  into  joint  meeting  at  noon  of 
the  day  that  saw  the  end  of  the  contest,  there  was  still  hope  that 
Mr.  Phelps  might  be  able  to  persuade  the  two  Passaic  Labor 
men,  but  it  was  so  indefinite  and  unsettled  that  there  was  a 
general  understanding  among  them  that  they  might  be  required 
to  break  to  one  of  the  three  named  by  the  Democratic  bolters. 
The  Republicans  were  determined  to  persevere  to  the  very  end 
for  a  Republican  candidate.  They  were  equally  determined  not 
to  allow  Abbett  to  win  even  if  they  had  to  vote  for  a  Demo- 
cratic candidate,  and  when  the  hour  for  joint  meeting  arrived, 
though  it  was  known  that  the  issue  had  to  be  settled  that  after- 
noon, not  a  man  of  them  knew  which  way  or  in  whose  favor  it 
was  to  be  settled.  As  it  would  be  impossible  for  them  to  leave 
the  joint  meeting  to  decide  upon  a  new  candidate  in  the  event  of 
the  failure  of  the  negotiations  of  Phelps'  friends  with  the  Pater- 
son  Labor  men,  it  was  arranged  that  the  signal  for  the  break 
from  a  Republican  candidate,  if  there  was  to  be  any,  should  be 
given  on  the  floor  of  joint  meeting. 

The  roll-call  is  arranged  alphabetically,  and  the  name  of 
Peter  Ackerman,  of  Bergen,  was  the  first  Republican  name  on 
Secretary  Reading's  list.  All  the  Republicans  were  given  to 
understand  that  on  every  ballot  on  which  Ackerman  voted  for 
Sewell,  they  were  to  be  free  to  vote  as  they  pleased,  but  that  if 
during  the  progress  of  the  ballot  he  announced  himself  for 
Phelps  or  for  a  Democrat,  they  were  all  to  follow  the  lead. 

Two  or  three  ballots  were  taken  while  the  Phelps  men  were 
making  final  efforts  with  the  two  Labor  men.  Word  was  finally 
brought  to  Colonel  Samuel  D.  Dickinson,  representing  the  Third 
district  of  Hudson,  that  the  Paterson  men  were  obdurate,  that 
Phelps'  election  was  impossible,  and  that  if  Abbett  were  to  be 
beaten  the  Republicans  must  join  with  the  Democratic  bolters  in 
voting  for  a  Democrat.  Dickinson  hurried  ex-Speaker  Arm- 
strong to  notify  Ackerman  that  he  must  lead  a  break  on  the 
next  roll-call. 


282         MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

"  Well,  what  is  the  name  ?  "  asked  Ackerman. 

"  His  name  is  Blodgett,"  was  the  answer. 

When  the  Clerk  called  Ackerman's  name  he  answered  with 
Blodgett's ;  the  Republicans  all  down  the  line  responded  with 
Blodgett.  Carroll,  explaining  his  vote,  declared  that  the  fight 
had  dwindled  down  to  a  railroad  and  anti- railroad  contest ;  that 
he  was  an  anti-railroad  man,  and  that  he  would  vote  for  Leon 
Abbett.  Donohue  stuck  to  Potter  because,  he  said,  he  was  a 
Labor  man,  and  he  proposed  to  stick  by  his  colors  to  the  last. 
Colonel  Dickinson  adhered  to  Sewell  and  changed  to  Blodgett 
only  when  he  saw  that  Sewell  was  defeated.  Chase  voted  first 
for  Abbett,  but  changed  to  Blodgett  at  the  end.  And  Letts,  a 
Democratic  Assemblyman  from  Hoboken,  in  the  hope  of  lead- 
ing a  counter  break  to  Sewell  that  would  yet  defeat  Blodgett, 
changed  to  Sewell.  The  Democrats  were  on  the  edge  of  a  stam- 
pede to  the  Camden  chieftain,  when  Senator  Edwards  got  up 
and  checked  it  by  saying  that  Governor  Abbett  preferred  a  poor 
Democrat  to  a  good  Republican. 

The  Democratic  malcontents  all  added  their  votes  to  those 
on  the  Blodgett  list,  and  President  Fish  announced,  amid  a 
silence  that  betrayed  the  disappointment  of  the  eager  throng  in 
the  galleries,  that  Rufus  Blodgett  had  forty-three  votes  and 
Leon  Abbett  only  thirty-eight  votes,  and  that  Rufus  Blodgett, 
and  not  Leon  Abbett,  had  been  elected  United  States  Senator 
for  the  six- year  term  commencing  on  the  4th  of  March. 

Abbett's  friends  almost  cried  with  rage  when  the  end  came. 
Assemblymen  Heppenheimer,  who  had  graduated  from  the  law 
office  into  the  Assembly,  even  hurled  a  volume  of  the  Revised 
Statutes  at  Baird's  head.  Haggard  and  broken  with  disap- 
pointment, the  Governor  looked  like  one  in  the  last  stages  of 
decline. 

Blodgett  was  stunned  when  a  young  Mercury  rushed  into  the 
room  in  one  of  the  Trenton  hotels  in  which  he  awaited  the 
news.  He  stared  vacantly  at  the  boy,  as  though  doubting  the 
evidence  of  his  senses  for  a  moment ;  then,  with  a  wild  whoop 
of  joy,  he  tossed  the  big  sombrero  he  held  in  his  hands,  to  the 
•  ceiling.     It  was  a  great  stroke  of  fortune  that  advanced  the 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         283 

uncouth  and  unlettered  railroad  man  to  a  place  among  the  rulers 
of  the  earth.  The  Republicans  lived  to  repent  their  part  in  the 
affair.  It  left  the  resourceful  Abbett  in  the  field  to  battle  them, 
while  there  was  no  compensating  gain  for  them  in  Blodgett's 
uneventful  service  in  the  great  building  on  Capitol  Hill. 


CHAPTER   XXIII. 

Which    shows    how    the    Kepublicans    Frightened    the    Liquor- 
Dealers   WITH   A   Temperance  Bill   and  were   in   Turn 
Punished  by  the  Liquor  Men  for  the  Scare. 


i^'HE  Republicans  of  the  State  were  meanwhile  looking 
forward  to  the  possible  outcome  of  two  important  po- 
litical battles  to  be  fought  to  an  issue  in  1889.  Sena- 
tor McPherson's  term  at  Washington  was  to  expire  in 
March,  and  the  Republicans  were  ambitious  to  control  the  Leg- 
islature of  1889,  and  so  name  his  successor.  In  the  fall  of  1889 
the  two  parties  were  to  contend  for  the  Governorship,  Governor 
Green's  term  expiring  in  January,  1890.  General  Sewell  prob- 
ably had  his  eye  on  Senator  McPherson's  seat  in  the  Senate,  and 
Senator  Griggs,  of  Passaic,  flattered  himself  that  his  notable 
work  in  connection  with  the  passage  of  the  Railroad  Tax  act 
would  make  him  an  available  candidate  for  the  Governorship. 
They  had  both  observed  that  in  the  last  gubernatorial  cam- 
paign (1886)  the  Temperance  men  held  the  balance  of  power 
between  the  two  parties — that  the  combined  Prohibition  and 
Republican  vote  exceeded  the  Democratic  vote  given  Green. 
Green  had  beaten  Howey,  the  Republican  candidate,  by  8,000 
votes ;  General  Fisk,  who  had  made  an  especially  active  can- 
vass as  the  Prohibition  candidate  for  Governor,  had  polled  be- 
tween 19,000  and  20,000  votes.  It  was  a  problem  in  simple 
addition  to  figure  that  if  the  19,000  Fisk  votes  had  been  cast 
for  Howey,  the  State  would  have  had  a  Republican  instead  of  a 
Democratic  Governor.  It  had  been  noted,  too,  that  just  as  the 
Prohibition  vote  went  up  the  Republican  vote  went  down,  and 
that  the  Republican  loss  to  the  Prohibition  party  was  largely 
from  the  Republican  counties  where  General  Sewell's  influence 
was  supreme.  The  General  was  naturally  desirous  of  main- 
(284) 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  285 


taining  his  ascendancy  in  the  counties  that  would  most  readily 
give  him  their  votes  for  Senator,  and  Mr.  Griggs'  gubernatorial 
aspirations  made  him  keenly  anxious  to  bring  the  straying 
sheep  from  all  over  back  to  the  Republican  fold. 

More,  even,  than  what  had  been  done  was  the  danger  of  what 
might  be  done.  The  tendency  of  the  Prohibition  vote  had  been 
steadily  upward.  The  cold  water  men  had  made  their  first  State 
campaign  in  the  gubernatorial  contest  of  1877.  It  was  a  new 
thing  then,  and  all  the  temperance  zealots  in  the  State  flocked 
to  its  standard  to  see  how  much  of  a  power  they  could  make  of 
themselves.  They  managed  to  poll  1,438  votes.  This  was  not 
particularly  promising  for  a  new  party,  and  when  the  venerable 
Stephen  B.  Ransom,  of  Hudson  county,  led  their  ticket  three 
years  later,  they  did  not  rally  to  his  support  and  the  temperance 
vote  declined  to  125.  But  in  1883  Parsons  polled  4,153  votes 
on  a  tee-total  platform,  and  in  1886  Fisk's  vote  jumped,  as  al- 
ready stated,  to  within  a  hundred  or  two  of  20,000.  The  Re- 
publican leaders  wondered  what  rate  of  increase  might  mark 
their  vote  for  1889  unless  some  concessions  were  made. 

When  the  Republicans  found  themselves  in  control  of 
the  Legislature  of  1888,  they  decided  to  temporize  with  this 
cold  water  brigade.  In  the  House  were  thirty- seven  Re- 
publicans and  twenty- three  Democrats,  and  Colonel  Samuel  D. 
Dickinson,  of  Hudson  county,  was  made  the  Speaker.  The 
Senate  consisted  of  twelve  Republicans  and  nine  Democrats, 
with  Senator  George  H.  Large,  of  Hunterdon,  as  their  presiding 
officer.  The  first  Republican  caucus  held  after  the  organization 
was  summoned  to  deal  with  the  liquor  question.  There  were 
several  conferences,  and  they  eventuated  in  a  bill  that  subse- 
quently became  known  as  the  Local  Option-High  License  act. 
The  act  made  it  the  duty  of  the  Circuit  Court  Judge  presiding 
in  any  county,  on  the  application  of  a  certain  percentage  of  the 
voters,  to  submit  to  the  people  of  the  county  at  a  special  elec- 
tion the  question  whether  drinking-places  should  be  licensed 
within  the  county.  If  the  majority  of  the  votes  were  in  the 
negative,  saloons  were  barred  throughout  the  county.  If  the 
vote  were  in  favor,  saloons  could  be  licensed  under  other  clauses 


286  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

of  the  bill.  The  licensing  parts  of  the  bill  graded  the  cost  of  a 
license  in  cities  according  to  their  sizes,  from  $500  to  $100. 
The  act  also  put  saloons  where  liquor  was  sold  on  Sundays  into 
the  category  of  disorderly  houses  and  visited  the  severest  penal- 
ties upon  those  who  either  sold  without  a  license  or  violated  the 
Sunday  law. 

When  its  full  import  became  known  the  act  created  the  wildest 
excitement  in  the  bar  rooms  all  over  the  State,  and  the  liquor 
dealers  flocked  to  Trenton  to  use  their  influence  for  its  defeat. 
It  was  especially  obnoxious  in  Jersey  City,  where  between 
1,000  and  1,200  saloons  were  operating  under  licenses  that  had 
cost  only  $50  apiece ;  in  Newark,  where  over  1,000  saloons 
were  permitted  to  do  business  on  the  payment  of  a  like  sum  into 
the  city  treasury ;  in  Hoboken,  where  there  were  300  saloons 
paying  $25  annual  license,  and  in  other  cities  of  the  State  where 
licenses  were  almost  as  cheap.  The  saloon  men  agreed  with  one 
voice  that  the  increase  of  the  license  fee  would  force  them  out  of 
business,  and  they  urged  that  a  lower  figure  be  fixed.  Subse- 
quent conferences  ended  in  the  decrease  of  the  fee  from  $500  to 
$250  for  the  largest  cities,  but  in  no  other  modifications  of  the 
bill.  When  the  caucus  had  perfected  it  the  bill  was  rushed 
through  two  readings  in  the  House  on  one  day.  McDermit,  of 
Newark,  made  an  attempt  to  delay  its  passage,  but  Assembly- 
man Rogers,  of  Passaic,  sprang  the  previous  question  and  it 
went  through  by  a  decisive  vote. 

The  aye  votes  were  cast  by  Brown,  Conkling,  Dickinson, 
Emley,  Fuller,  Gallagher,  Goble,  Hansell,  Harrington,  Hill, 
G.  H.  Higgins,  Hutchinson,  Jones,  Low,  Learning,  Ludlam, 
Lufburrow,  Lyon,  Marlatt,  McGowan,  Meeker,  Nixon,  Olden, 
Peck,  Riker,  Rogers,  Smalley,  Smith,  Ulrich,  Voorhees,   West. 

The  nay  vote  was  cast  by  Bale,  Bloomer,  Christie,  Cutter, 
Dusenberry,  Farrell,  Feeney,  Heppenheimer,  A.  A.  Higgins, 
Hoover,  Kays,  Leavitt,  Letts,  Lozier,  Martin,  Matthews, 
McDermit,  Mulvey,  Mutchler,  Norton,  Pitney,  Potts,  Riley, 
Schmelz,  Short,  Trimmer.  Of  those  who  voted  for  it,  Ludlam 
and  Smalley  were  Democrats;  Dusenberry,  Christie,  Lozier, 
Leavitt  and  Letts,  who  voted  against  it,  were  Republicans. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF  TRENTON.  287 


The  bill  was  rushed  into  the  Senate  and  pressed  to  final 
passage  in  two  days.  On  roll-call,  Senators  Edwards,  of  Hud- 
son, and  Wyckoff,  of  Warren,  protested  against  what  they  called 
its  railroading.  No  time  was  lost,  however,  and  the  roll-call 
showed  twelve  votes  for  it  and  only  six  against  it. 

The  aye  vote  was  cast  by  Carter,  Cranmer,  Gardner,  Griggs, 
Hanes,  Large,  Martin,  Miller,  Nevius,  Roe,  Rue  and  Thomp- 
son. The  negatives  were  Edwards,  McBride,  Newell,  Pfeiffer, 
Werts  and  Wyckoif.  Senators  Baker,  Bogart  and  Chase  were 
absent.  Baker  afterwards  appeared  and  asked  to  be  recorded  in 
its  favor,  and  Bogart  against  it.  Governor  Green  promptly 
vetoed  it,  and  the  liquor  men  are  said  to  have  offered  fabulous 
sums  for  votes  in  favor  of  the  veto.  When  the  veto  Avas  called 
up  in  the  House,  it  provoked  a  long  debate,  in  which  McDermit 
of  Essex  and  Feeney  and  Heppenheimer  of  Hudson  argued 
in  its  support,  and  Assemblymen  Charles  W.  Fuller  of  Hudson, 
Emley  of  Passaic,  and  Goble  of  Ocean  spoke  for  the  bill. 
Lozier,  one  of  the  Republicans  who  refused  to  abide  the  caucus 
action,  declared  that  his  objection  was  to  the  local  option  feature ; 
and  Goble,  in  his  remarks,  said  that  he  was  tired  of  seeing  the 
State  run  by  the  rum  power.  As  everybody  expected  it  would, 
the  House  overrode  the  veto,  and  the  act  was  sent  to  the  Senate 
for  passage  notwithstanding  the  Governor's  objections.  There, 
after  a  two-days'  debate,  with  Nevius,  Griggs  and  Gardner 
championing  the  bill,  and  Werts,  McBride  and  Edwards  defend- 
ing its  veto,  the  veto  was  overridden ;  and  the  act,  passed  by  the 
party  vote,  became  a  law  of  the  State. 

The  passage  of  the  act  called  the  warring  clans  into  imme- 
diate action.  The  temperance  men  were  first  in  the  field.  They 
organized  almost  immediately  to  prepare  for  the  attack  upon 
what  they  described  as  the  entrenched  rum  power.  Dr.  Henry  K. 
Carroll,  Chairman  of  the  Central  Local  Option  Committee,  pre- 
sided at  their  meeting  in  the  State  Health  Board's  office,  and  a 
Permanent  Central  Executive  Committee,  consisting  of  Dr. 
Carroll  himself;  John  Y.  Foster,  of  the  Newark  Law  and 
Order  League ;  Rev.  A.  E.  Ballard,"  of  Ocean  Grove,  President 
of  the  Church  Committee  on  Temperance ;  Rev.  B.  S.  Everitt, 


■288         MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

President  of  the  State  Temperance  Alliance ;  Major  James  S. 
Yard,  a  well-known  Democratic  editor  in  Freehold ;  George  J. 
Ferry,  a  conspicuous  Orange  Methodist ;  Judge  J.  S.  Diverty, 
of  Cape  May ;  Rev.  B.  C.  Lippincott  and  D.  F.  Merritt,  was 
instructed  to  organize  the  counties  with  all  possible  dispatch  for 
local  option  elections.  Within  a  week  they  had  warmed  the 
local  temperance  organizations  into  energetic  action,  and  in  half 
the  counties  of  the  State  movements  looking  to  the  holding  of 
special  elections  were  set  on  foot. 

The  care  of  the  liquor  interests  was  in  the  hands  of  the  State 
Liquor  Dealers'  Association.  Finance  Commissioner  John 
Edelstein,  of  Jersey  City,  was  their  Chairman,  and  ex- Governor 
Leon  Abbett  was  their  counsel.  This  organization  represented, 
as  the  inimitable  Harrigan,  of  Essex,  had  said  from  his  seat  in 
the  Assembly  Chamber  during  the  discussion  of  the  bill,  an 
army  of  saloon  men  with  a  capital  of  $15,000,000  invested  in 
the  traffic.  They  were  numerous  enough  and  had  retainers 
enough  to  be  moulders  of  sentiment  themselves — so  much  so 
that  they  threatened  that  unless  the  Democrats  gave  them 
assurances  of  the  repeal  of  the  law,  they  would  organize  a 
party  of  their  own  and  make  a  campaign  on  the  distinctive 
rum  issue.  They  might  have  gone  to  this  extreme,  but  that 
Governor  Abbett  had  set  his  eye  upon  the  chief  chair  of  state 
again,  and  that  his  official  and  personal  relations  with  them  gave 
him  an  opportunity  to  put  the  brakes  on  their  mad  impetuosity. 

There  was  not  a  phase  of  the  bill  that  satisfied  them.  The 
idea  of  having  the  saloon  barred  entirely  out  of  any  county  in  the 
State  could  never  be  accepted  by  them,  of  course.  The  increased 
license  fee  threatened  to  force  many  unable  to  raise  the  money 
out  of  business.  The  clause  pillorying  the  Sunday  saloon  as  a 
"  disorderly  house  "  gored  their  sensibilities.  Violations  of  the 
Sunday  law  were  the  rule  everywhere  in  the  populous  cities. 
There  had  been  no  way  of  punishing  them  except  through  pre- 
sentments by  the  grand  juries,  and  the  grand  juries  they  con- 
trolled, so  that  they  were  protected  in  their  offending.  Even  when 
they  had  been  handed  up  to  the  courts,  the  penalties  had  been  so 
light  as  to  give  them  no  concern.     They  could  pay  the  trifling 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         289 

fine  on  Monday  out  of  the  business  of  the  Sunday  before  and 
have  a  handsome  margin  of  profit  left.  But  the  new  act  meant 
suspension  of  business  for  a  year  on  first  conviction,  and  for- 
feiture of  their  licenses,  with  the  added  penalty  of  being  forever 
forbidden  to  resume,  on  the  second. 

But  when  they  entered  upon  their  contf  st  for  the  repeal  of  the 
law,  they  found  themselves  handicapped  by  a  very  general  popu- 
lar satisfaction  with  most  of  its  features.  The  increased  license 
fee  was  a  boon  to  the  local  treasuries  that  quite  reconciled  tax- 
payers to  other  phases  of  it  which  might  not  otherwise  have 
commanded  their  ready  admiiation.  Jersey  City,  which  had 
been  forced  to  license  her  thousand  saloons  for  §50,000,  was  now 
able  to  exact  $250,000  annual  tribute  from  them.  Hoboken's 
license  receipts  leaped  from  less  than  $10,000  to  nearly  $30,000. 
Newark's  local  treasury  was  enriched  to  the  extent  of  $200,000 
or  more  a  year,  and,  speaking  generally,  people  of  the  munici- 
palities were  gratified  to  see  that  the  rum  sellers  were  obliged  at 
last  to  contribute  somethicg  like  their  share  towards  the  main- 
tenance of  the  jails  and  workhouses  and  poorhouses  which  they 
filled  with  their  victims.  It  soon  became  apparent  even  to  the 
saloon-keepers  themselves  that  whatever  else  they  might  be  able 
to  do  in  the  direction  of  softening  the  rigors  of  the  law,  the 
high  license  end  of  it  would  be  a  hard  thing  to  root  out. 

They  were  treated  to  a  surprise  in  the  popularity  of  the  local 
option  end  as  well,  as  the  temperance  people  forced  the  issue  to 
the  front  by  applications  for  special  elections  under  it.  Cum- 
berland was  the  first  to  ask  the  privilege  of  forbidding  the  open- 
ing of  a  saloon  on  her  soil.  The  application  was  made  to  ihe 
court,  and  a  day  in  August  was  designated  for  the  taking  of  Ler 
vote.  Her  earnest  people  never  worked  so  hard  for  a  triumph 
in  the  interests  of  law  and  order.  The  temperance  workers  in 
one  little  town  had  sixteen  wagons  on  the  go  all  day.  Women 
held  prayer- meetings  at  the  polling  places  in  other  towns.  The 
liquor  men  received  the  announcement  that  she  had  declared 
against  license  with  an  unconcern  that  was  not  affected.  With 
Vineland  and  Bridgeton,  founded  on  the  Prohibition  idea,  among 
her  towns,  they  had  expected  nothing  else  of  her.     But  they 

19 


290  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

took  alarm  when,  a  month  later,  they  saw  Democratic  Warren 
also  order  all  of  her  road-houses  and  taverns  closed  by  a  majority 
of  900  on  the  popular  vote,  and  Salem  the  same  day  set  her  face 
against  the  saloons  by  a  majority  that,  compared  with  her  popu- 
lation, was  even  more  pronounced.  Then  Gloucester,  filled  with 
factory  hands  all  more  or  less  enamored  of  a  "  drap  o'  the  cray- 
thur,"  wheeled  into  the  Prohibition  column  by  over  700  majority, 
and  Cape  May  spoke  up  to  say  that  the  mammoth  hostelries  of 
her  great  watering  resorts  should  confine  themselves  to  the  sale 
of  soda  water  and  ginger  pop  and  church-fair  lemonade. 

They  were  stunned  out  of  their  senses  when,  about  the  time 
the  Legislature  of  1889  was  assembling,  Democratic  Hunterdon, 
wedded  to  her  apple-jack,  had  gone  for  reform  and  no  license. 
The  State  seemed  to  be  wild  in  its  prohibition  enthusiasm. 
Every  day  brought  new  applications  to  the  courts  for  elections 
in  other  counties.  The  temperance  people  of  Jersey  City  and 
Newark  hoped  to  banish  the  bar  even  from  Hudson  and  Essex ; 
and  the  brewers  and  liquor  men  feared  that  the  temperance  wave, 
a  ripple  when  it  caught  Cumberland  in  its  embrace  that  had 
grown  into  a  roaring  billow  when  it  swept  over  Hunterdon, 
might  deluge  the  bars  of  the  more  populous  industrial  localities 
with  cold  water. 

The  danger  was  too  great  for  the  liquor  men  to  try  the  ex- 
periment of  an  independent  liquor  campaign.  Their  only  hope 
was  in  an  alliance  with  the  Democratic  candidates,  and  by  the 
time  the  parties  were  ready  to  open  up  for  the  fall  campaign  of 
1888  they  had  secretly  agreed  to  labor  for  the  success  of  the 
Democratic  Assembly  and  Senatorial  tickets.  The  Democrats 
gave  them  recognition  in  their  conventions.  Brewers  Weiden- 
mayer  and  Schmelz  were  among  the  candidates  the  party  offered 
to  the  Newark  voters,  and  the  lists  were  full  of  names  of  men 
more  or  less  directly  interested  in  the  liquor  traffic.  That  the 
party  had  sold  itself  out  to  the  rum  power  was  the  charge  with 
which  the  Republicans  made  the  Democracy  face  the  people. 
The  Democrats,  in  their  turn,  described  the  Republican  policy 
as  puritanical  and  full  of  blue-law  narrowness.  Every  inch  of 
ground  was   contested   by  both   sides  with   desperate   energy. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         291 


Both  parties  recognized  the  combat  as  one  that  would  determine 
their  fortunes  for  years  to  come.  The  liquor  element  worked 
harder  for  Democratic  success  even  than  the  Democratic  party 
did  itself ;  and  when  the  results  were  cast  up  in  the  small  hours 
following  election  day,  it  was  seen  that  the  Democrats  had 
wrested  the  control  of  both  Houses  from  the  Republicans. 

"  Now,"  boasted  one  of  the  members  of  the  Liquor  Dealers' 
Association,  when  the  result  of  the  election  became  known, 
^^  there  will  be  no  United  States  Senator  elected  till  the  Anti- 
Liquor  law  is  repealed." 

The  threat  was  in  contemplation  of  the  choice  for  United 
States  Senator,  successor  to  John  R.  McPherson,  to  be  made 
during  the  coming  session  of  the  Legislature.  Mr.  McPherson's 
term  was  to  expire  in  March,  1889.  When  the  joint  caucus  of 
the  Democratic  members  of  the  two  Houses  assembled  in  Janu- 
ary to  select  the  new  Senator  the  threatened  attempt  to  force  the 
legislators  to  pledge  themselves  to  the  repeal  of  the  law  as  a 
conditidn  precedent  to  the  nomination  of  a  candidate  for  Senator 
was  actually  made,  but  it  fell  short  of  the  mark. 

The  counties  were  still  holding,  or  preparing  to  hold,  new 
local  option  elections  when  the  Legislature  of  1889  gathered  in 
the  State  House ;  and  among  the  very  first  bills  offered  for  its 
<;onsideration  was  one  by  Brewer-Assemblyman  George  W. 
Weidenmayer  aimed  at  the  Local  Option  law.  The  subject  was 
a  delicate  one  for  the  politicians  to  handle,  especially  in  view  of 
the  gubernatorial  election  to  be  held  in  the  fall.  The  liquor 
men  deemed  the  Weidenmayer  act  a  trifle  too  conservative  to 
meet  their  views,  and  insisted  upon  the  uprooting  of  the  legisla- 
tion of  1888,  and  the  members  evinced  a  disposition  to  yield  to 
their  demands.  But  the  party  leaders  feared  the  political  effect 
of  going  so  far.  The  two  parties  watched  each  other  as  cats 
watch  mice.  The  Republicans  kept  their  eye  upon  the  Weiden- 
mayer act  as  the  one  representing  the  composite  views  of  the 
Democratic  leaders  and  consequently  destined  to  pass,  and  they 
were  ever  on  the  elert  for  an  opportunity  to  choke  it  to  death. 
The  absence  of  a  Democratic  member  from  the  Assembly 
Chamber  gave  the  Republicans  an  accidental  majority  upon  one 


292  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

occasion,  and  young  Assemblyman  Voorhees,  of  Union,  gave 
the  Democrats  a  big  scare  by  calling  the  bill  up  for  action. 
Speaker  Hudspeth  saw  that  his  purpose  was  to  defeat  it,  and  he 
sent  the  sergeants  and  doorkeepers  and  pages  scurrying  in  all 
directions  for  the  absentees  while,  with  repeated  roll-calls,  he 
held  the  minority  at  bay.  Informed  at  last  that  they  were  not 
within  reach,  he  entertained  a  motion  to  adjourn,  and  declared 
it  carried  without  taking  the  trouble  to  ask  for  the  "nay"^ 
votes.  His  frightened  party  associates  disappeared  from  their 
seats  and  dropped  to  the  ground  out  of  the  windows  as  though 
the  room  were  afire  inside. 

The  Republicans  discovered,  a  few  days  later,  that  the 
Weidenmayer  act  was  not  to  be  the  favored  one  after  all.  The 
repealing  act  was  still  in  embryo.  Senator  McPherson,  ex- Gov- 
ernor Abbett,  Allan  McDermott,  and  the  brewers  were  holding 
anxious  nightly  conferences  for  the  perfecting  of  a  bill  Senator 
Werts,  of  Morris,  had  outlined.  When  it  had  been  finally 
licked  into  shape,  the  liquor  men  were  all  but  pleased  with  it. 
It  merely  repealed  local  option ;  it  did  not  interfere  with  high 
license,  though  it  incidentally  modified  the  clauses  regarding  the 
sale  of  liquor  on  the  Sabbath.  There  was  doubt  whether  the 
Senate  could  be  brought  to  the  making  of  even  this  concession.. 

A  single  vote  represented  the  Democratic  majority  in  that 
branch  of  the  Legislature.  A  political  accident  had  given  the 
people  of  Cumberland  a  Democrat  to  represent  them,  and  this 
Senator,  Baker,  was  unwilling  to  aid  in  the  repeal  of  an  act 
which  his  constituents  had  so  enthusiastically  accepted  but  a  few 
months  before.  Warren,  too,  bad  declared  against  saloons,  and 
Senator  Wyckoff,  her  representative,  hesitated,  in  view  of  her 
declaration  against  the  saloon,  to  interfere  with  the  local  option 
end  of  the  law.  Wyckoff  was  easily  persuaded  to  step  out  of 
the  way.  But  the  Cumberland  Senator  was  more  obstinate,  and 
fears  were  entertained  that  his  opposition  would  defeat  the  pas- 
sage of  the  repealer. 

The  Democratic  caucus  had  a  whole  raft  of  party  bills  on 
their  way  through  the  Houses  at  the  time  this  obstruction  was 
encountered,  and  the  liquor  men  declared  that  not  one  of  them 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         293 


should  be  advanced  a  single  step  till  relief  had  been  given  them, 
and  the  Democratic  managers  sat  up  nights  with  Baker  in  the 
hope  of  bringing  him  to  terms.  Such  a  thing  as  an  out-and-out 
repealer  of  the  Local  Option  act  he  would  not  listen  to,  and  they 
worried  their  brains  over  the  problem  till  they  had  worked  out 
a  scheme  of  town  option  that  might  please  him.  It  provided 
that  on  the  petition  of  one-fifth  of  the  local  voters  of  any  town- 
ship, borough  or  city  where  licenses  were  granted  by  the  Courts 
of  Common  Pleas,  the  court  could  fix  a  day  whereon  the  mini- 
mum license  fee  could  be  determined  by  popular  vote.  In  most 
of  the  municipalities  the  licenses  were  granted  by  local  excise 
boards,  and  the  local  option  provided  in  this  amendment  could 
be  of  but  limited  application ;  but  Senator  Baker  accepted  it 
with  many  mipgivings,  and  the  bill  in  that  shape  was  started  on 
its  way  through  the  Houses. 

The  church  and  temperance  people  were  not  inactive  while 
these  steps  were  being  taken.  The  desks  of  the  Clerks  in  both 
Houses  were  deluged  with  memorials  against  any  interference 
with  the  temperance  law ;  and  when  the  Senate  was  thrown  open 
to  the  protestants,  the  speeches  made  by  Rev.  Dr.  Ballard,  Rev. 
Cornelius  Brett  of  Jersey  City,  Major  Yard  of  Freehold,  Wal- 
lace McGeorge  of  Gloucester,  Oscar  Jeffery  of  Warren  and 
Rev.  J.  H.  Knowles  of  Newark  in  behalf  of  the  retention  of 
the  law  were  heard  and  applauded  by  an  enormous  throng  of 
people.  Their  efforts  were  all  in  vain,  however.  The  repealing 
act  was  whipped  through  both  the  Houses  as  s)on  as  the  path 
had  been  cleared  for  it,  and  Governor  Green  signed  it  with  as 
little  delay. 

The  effect  of  its  passage  was  to  negative  the  local  option  votes 
in  the  counties  that  had  voted  in  favor  of  it,  and  to  stop  the 
threatened  local  option  invasion  of  other  counties.  The  liquor 
men  had  escaped  the  menace  of  the  entire  destruction  of  their 
traffic  in  the  State ;  but  they  were  yet  far  from  satisfied.  They 
still  persisted  in  their  efforts  to  destroy  the  high  license  features 
of  the  act,  and  filled  the  seats  in  the  Assembly  with  men  of 
their  own  calling  in  that  interest.  But  the  leaders  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party  refused  to  permit  any  further  modification  of  the 
main  features  of  the  enactment. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

The  Little  Romance  Here  Unfolded  in  Connection  with  Senator 

McPherson's  Last  Election  to  the  United  States  Senate 

IS  Not  Necessarily  a  Political  One  ;  But  it  is  a 

Trifle  Too  Pretty  to  be  Left  Untold. 


HE  returns  of  the  election  of  1888  showed  a  Demo- 
cratic msjority  in  the  Legislature  of  1889.  The  Demo- 
crats in  the  Senate  were  only  one  ahead  of  the  Repub- 
licans, and  in  the  Assembly  they  had  but  a  single  vote 
to  spare  beyond  a  working  majority.  The  death  of  Assembly- 
man Short,  of  Hudson,  on  the  eve  of  the  opening  of  the  session, 
left  them  with  barely  enough  votes  in  the  House  to  control  the 
organization.  Senator  McPherson's  second  term  was  to  expire 
in  March,  and  the  filling  of  the  vacancy  was  to  be  one  of  the 
features  of  the  winter's  work.  A  close  Legislature  is  a  ticklish 
thing  for  a  party  to  handle  in  a  senatorial  year.  The  disturb- 
ances of  party  plans  that  a  little  handful  of  malcontents  can 
create  when  the  party  majority  on  joint  ballot  is  a  small  one  had 
been  demonstrated  by  the  experiences  of  the  legislative  struggles 
of  1883  and  1887.  Senator  McPherson,  who  was  seeking  a  second 
re-election,  was  unwilling  that  a  single  possible  Democratic  vote 
should  be  lost,  and  he  urged  a  special  election  for  a  member  to 
take  the  seat  of  the  dead  Assemblyman.  The  more  insistent 
was  he  because  the  district  from  which  Short  had  been  returned 
was  strongly  Democratic,  and  a  Democratic  nomination  there 
was  as  good  as  an  election. 

The  unquestioning  fidelity  of  the  voters  of  the  district  to  the 
Democratic  label  made  the  local  managers  reckless  about  the 
worth  and  fitness  of  the  man  whom  they  set  up  as  their  nominee. 
Their  candidate  was  a  stolid-looking  fellow,  undersized,  thick- 
set, swarthy  of  face,  with  short-cropped  mustache  that  did  not 
(294) 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         295 


conceal  his  full  red  lips,  and  who  plastered  his  hair  down  upon 
his  forehead.  He  had  the  general  aspect  of  a  rather  good- 
looking  peanut  vender.  But  he  was  not  a  peanut  vender. 
Most  of  the  time  he  was  one  of  Sheriff  Davis's  tipstaves  in 
waiting  upon  the  Hudson  county  courts.  The  rest  of  it  he 
spent  in  his  barber  shop  in  the  West  Hoboken  region. 

He  might  have  led  to  the  end  the  unconspicuous  life  his  call- 
ings had  marked  out  for  him  and  never  have  been  known  to 
fame  if  a  florist  neighbor  of  his  had  not  been  the  luckless  father 
of  a  wayward  daughter.  Her  girlish  vivacity  captivated  the 
barber- constable,  and  though  he  had  at  home  a  prettier  wife 
who  should  have  claimed  his  affections,  he  devoted  himself  to 
this  newer  sweetheart  of  his  till  all  the  town  was  talking  about 
him.  Of  a  sudden  she  disappeared.  Her  heartbroken  old 
father  guessed  at  once  the  influence  that  had  led  her  away,  but 
his  prayerful  entreaties  for  her  restoration  were  met  by  his 
barber  neighbor  with  heartless  denials  and  indifference.  And 
then  the  white-haired  old  man  tottered  out  on  his  cane  to  search 
for  her.  Night  and  day  he  went  in  quest  of  clues  and  followed 
them  up  to  nothing  till  his  feeble  limbs  refused  to  bear  him 
further.  And  way  into  the  hours  of  the  night  would  he  sit  in 
his  humble  home  croning  the  story  of  his  fruitless  travels  over 
to  the  bloodhound,  as  lonesome  and  down-hearted  as  himself, 
that  lay  curled  at  his  feet. 

Then  the  stricken  man's  sympathies  would  overflow  till 
they  embraced  even  the  dog,  and  he  would  murmur  Bella's 
name  in  abstraction,  and  ask  the  brute  if  he  remembered  her, 
if  he  missed  her,  without  expecting  any  answer,  not  noticing, 
indeed,  in  the  absorption  of  his  own  sorrow  that  he  had  even 
asked  the  question. 

But  the  answer  never  failed  him.  At  each  mention  of  the 
name  the  dog  would  spring  to  his  feet,  and  quivering  in  every 
muscle  with  eager  expectancy,  would  gaze  at  the  door  as  though 
ready  to  greet  his  bright-eyed  and  fair-haired  little  mistress  as 
she  came  tripping  over  the  threshold,  to  throw  herself  by  his 
side  and  circle  his  neck  with  her  arms  again  as  of  yore. 

"  No,  no,  boy,"  the  old  man  would  murmur  admonishingly. 


296  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

"  Not  there,  boy.  Gone !  Dead  !  Worse'n  dead,  boy — 
worsfc'n  dead  !  On  Fourteenth  street  they  say  she  can  be  found. 
But  Fourteenth's  a  long  street,  and  there's  many  a  house  on  it, 
and  one  might  as  well  not  know  the  street  as  not  know  the 
number." 

There  was  such  helpless  despair  in  his  words,  that  the  dog, 
moved  by  the  tone,  would  droop  his  ears  and  grow  gloomy  again 
and  curl  himself  on  the  floor  and  blink  and  mope  the  night 
away,  while  the  old  man  would  live  over  again  in  fitful  slumbers 
the  events  and  labors  of  the  day. 

"  Lie  down.  Sport !     Lie  down,  sir  !  " 

The  old  man  said  it  in  his  dream.  But  the  dog  was  not  to 
be  quieted.  He  was  tugging  at  the  bagged  trouser  knees  of 
the  drowsy  florist.  The  old  man,  annoyed,  opened  his  eyes  to 
enforce  his  command.  The  dog  stood  before  him  gazing  into 
his  face  with  beaming  eye,  his  ears  alert,  his  tail  whisking.  And 
when  hfc'd  barked  his  drowsy  master  awake,  he  dashed  off  to  a 
corner  of  the  room,  caught  an  ill-shapen  cast-off  shoe  of  the  miss- 
ing girl  between  his  teeth,  hid  it  under  the  cupboard,  and 
scented  around  it  till  he  brought  it  forth  sgain  and  laid  it  in  his 
master's  lap. 

The  brute  was  talking  in  pantomime.  The  old  florist  watched 
his  movements  with  curious  eye,  but  understood  it  all  when 
the  worn  slipper  was  placed  gently  on  his  knee. 

"  You're  a  Sleuth,  Sport.  Will  you  help  find  Bella  for  me  ?  " 
he  asked  with  cheerful  voice  born  of  new  hope.  "  You  say 
'yes'  in  your  bark.  Sport.     To-morrow  I  try  you." 

Sleep  was  banished  from  the  florist's  eyes  for  the  night.  He 
beguiled  the  hours  till  daylight  by  recalling  all  the  wonderful 
stories  about  the  scent  of  hounds  he  had  heard  from  his  boyhood 
up.  At  gray  dawn  he  was  making  his  preparations  for  his  visit 
and  Sport's,  to  the  thoroughfare  in  New  York  about  which  he 
had  been  murmuring  in  his  dreams  for  days  past. 

The  dog's  snout  bad  been  rubbed  with  the  worn  slipper  to 
point  his  scent  when  his  master  landed  with  him  at  the  foot  of 
the  street  through  which  he  proposed  to  make  his  quest.  The 
knowing  brute  seemed  to  have  a  keen  sense  of  his  mission.    He 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  297 

trotted  along  with  au  uuinterested  air,  the  old  man  following 
whither  the  string  fastened  to  the  animal's  collar  led  him,  for 
blocks  and  blocks.  Of  a  sudden  the  dog  began  to  sniff  and 
scent  around,  sticking  his  nose  into  angles  around  the  stoops,  at 
the  curb?,  in  the  gutters.  The  old  man's  heart  throbbel  with 
anticipation.  His  kean-nosed  guide  had  struck  the  trail  his 
anxious  heart  had  sought  in  vain.  Closer  and  closer  to  the 
pavement  the  dog  bent ;  more  nervous  and  eager  and  erratic 
became  his  movements  as  he  darted  here  and  darted  there — 
to  railing,  to  gutter,  to  crosswalk — as  though  he  feared  the  scent 
would  escape  him,  sniffing,  panting,  throbbing,  with  low  satis- 
fied growls  between,  quivering  in  every  muscle,  his  pace  grow- 
ing quicker  and  quicker  as  the  trail  grew  warmer,  till  in  his 
frenzy  he  had  forgotten  all  about  his  old  master  and  the  string 
that  tied  him  to  him,  and  he  was  dragging  the  feeble  man 
down  the  street  on  a  trot  to  which  his  cracking  limbs  had  not 
been  accustomed  in  many  a  day. 

And  now  he  stops  to  smell  around  the  steps  of  a  stoop,  and 
around  the  iron  post  at  its  foot,  till  with  a  bound  he  springs  to 
the  cap  stone  and  plants  his  two  paws  firmly  against  the  closed 
■doors.  The  old  man  knows  his  search  has  ended — and  there  in 
that  house  is  his  wayward  girl. 

Of  course  he  took  her  home  with  him,  but  the  barber's  spell 
over  her  had  not  been  broken,  and  it  was  not  many  weeks  before 
she  tore  her  stricken  father's  heart  again  by  a  second  disappear- 
ance. The  disheartened  florist  started  on  a  new  voyage  of  dis- 
covery, but  not  a  ray  of  hope  brightened  the  prospect.  He 
couldn't  even  learn  that  she  had  gone  to  New  York,  and  in  utter 
despair  he  dropped  his  hands  by  his  side  and  decided  to  await 
the  turn  of  events. 

Lying  in  a  woods  not  far  from  Bella's  home,  the  body  of  a 
beautiful  girl  was  found  some  weeks  later.  Her  skull  had  been 
crushed  in  with  a  stone.  Her  bonnet  had  been  torn  from  her 
head.  The  brush  around  showed  the  evidence  of  a  fierce 
struggle.  The  country  was  startled  by  the  brutality  of  the 
crime  and  interested  in  her  fate  because  of  her  beauty.  The 
mangled  form  was  carried  to  Crane's  morgue,  in  Hoboken,  and 


298  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

placed  on  a  slab  in  the  dark  and  damp  basement  that  served  as* 
the  dead-room.  A  feeble  gas-jet  that  flickered  above  her  form 
lent  weirdnees  to  the  scene.  Attendants  folded  her  small  hands- 
over  her  breast,  and  thousands  of  people — some  anxious  and 
apprehensive,  some  merely  curious — streamed  down  the  stone 
steps  into  the  dimly-lighted  crypt  to  see  if  they  could  tell  who 
she  was  and  whence  she  had  come.  None  knew  her.  No  one 
had  ever  seen  her  before. 

A  gray- headed  man,  bent  with  age  and  leaning  on  a  stick, 
was  among  the  last  to  totter  down  the  steps.  He  halted  by  the  side- 
of  the  bier,  with  its  pallid,  upturned  face  and  interlocked  fingers. 
He  drew  the  rubber  cloth  that  covered  her  face  tenderly  back^ 
and  examined  teeth  and  ears  and  hair.  Then,  with  trembling 
fingers,  he  turned  the  cover  another  curl,  unfastened  the  waist, 
and  peered  at  the  underwear.  A  red  sack  that  covered  the  bust 
unnerved  him. 

He  sank  back  against  the  wall. 

"  It's  Bella ! "  he  moaned.  "  Poor  Bella  !  He's  murdered 
you  at  last,  my  girl." 

The  whole  of  North  Hudson  was  ablaze  with  excitement  the 
momect  the  identification  became  known.  Vigilance  commit- 
tees started  out  to  search  for  the  suspected  barber.  He  was  not 
at  home,  and  his  wife  was  told  to  warn  him  to  produce  the 
missing  florist's  daughter  or  take  the  consequences.  The  crim- 
inal authorities  of  the  county  heard  the  story  and  lost  no  time 
in  acting.  Prosecutor  McGill  was  ready  to  spring  a  charge  of 
murder  upon  the  girl's  abductor.  Ex-Judge  William  T.  Hoff- 
man appeared  as  sponf  er  for  the  suspected  fellow. 

"  I  have  assurances,"  he  declared,  "  that  Bella  is  alive." 

"  Let  her  be  produced,  then,  before  five  o'clock  this  evening,'^ 
the  Prosecutor  responded,  "  or  we'll  arrest  your  client  for  her 
murder." 

The  constable-barber  consented  to  pilot  the  searching  party. 
The  one  condition  he  exacted  was  that  the  girl's  father  should 
not  accompany  them.  He  was  afraid  of  the  old  man's  vengeance.. 
No  one  save  the  constable  knew  Bella  by  sight.  Coroner  John 
R.  Wiggins,  who  was  one  of  the  detail,  armed  himself,  for  a. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         29» 


guard  against  deception,  with  the  worn  shoe  with  which  the  old 
man  had  once  pointed  the  bloodhound's  scent,  and  accompanied 
the  searchers  across  the  river.  The  house  to  which  he  escorted 
them  was  brilliant  with  light  from  top  to  bottom.  Sounds  of 
revelry  greeted  their  ears  as  the  door  swung  open  at  their  sum- 
mons. The  music  of  a  piano  mingled  with  the  clink  of  glasses, 
with  peals  of  laughter,  with  hilarious  snatches  of  song.  Women 
and  men  were  holding  high  carnival  in  the  handsomely-appointed 
parlors.     The  constable  stepped  to  the  middle  of  the  room. 

«'  Bella ! " 

A  bright- faced  girl  with  crinkled  blonde  hair  falling  in  wavy 
sunshine  over  her  shoulders,  recognized  the  voice,  and,  dashing 
from  the  throng,  tripped  gaily  to  him. 

"Are  you  Bella?"  Wiggins  asked. 

"  Why,  of  course  I  am,"  she  responded  naively,  with  a  tinge 
of  wonderment  in  her  voice. 

"  If  you  are,  this  shoe  will  fit  you,"  the  Coroner  pursued. 
"  Would  you  mind  trying  it  on  ?  " 

It  was  the  old  story  of  Cinderella  again,  except  that  the 
slipper  was  not  of  glass,  but  was  rather  a  decrepit  specimen  of 
a  house  shoe,  bulging  at  the  side  and  run  over  at  the  heel.  The 
Coroner  knelt  to  unfasten  the  buttons  that  held  the  high-heeled 
fashionable  gaiter  to  her  shapely  foot  and  try  the  other  in  its 
place. 

"  It  fits  like  a  glove,"  he  said  when  he  had  adjusted  it. 
"  There  is  no  doubt,  gentlemen,  that  Bella's  body  is  not  in  the 
morgue  at  Hoboken." 

Of  course  the  old  man  had  known  it  was  not  Bella's  corpse 
when  he  viewed  it.  His  identification  was  but  his  ruse  to  force 
the  abductor  of  his  child  to  make  revelation  as  to  her  where- 
abouts. It  was  many  weeks  before  the  authorities  learned  who 
the  unknown  victim  of  violence  was.  Her  identity  might 
never  have  been  uncovered  but  for  the  skill  and  energy  of  a 
young  newspaper  reporter,  Augustus  A.  Seide,  who  traced  the 
woman  by  a  bit  of  newspaper  that  lay  upon  the  ground  by  her 
side,  and  who,  in  the  end,  brought  her  brutal  murderer  to  the 
gallows. 


300  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  this  story  was  laid  bare  amoDg  the 
voters,  the  stolid  community  which  the  Lothario  constable  barber 
desired  to  represent  sent  him  to  the  Assembly  to  make  its  Demo- 
cratic majority  there  more  safe. 

At  the  opening  of  the  session,  both  Houses  were  in  control  of 
the  Democrats.  Senator  Werts,  of  Morris,  was  chosen  to  the 
Presidency  of  the  Senate  without  opposition.  After  a  canvass 
in  which  Assemblymen  Frank  M.  McDermit,  of  Essex,  and 
Hudspeth,  Feeney  and  Heppenheimer,  of  Hudson,  were  the 
candidates,  Hudspeth  mounted  to  the  Speakership  of  the 
Assembly.  When  the  Democratic  joint  caucus  was  about  ready 
to  assemble,  the  re-election  of  Senator  McPherson  seemed  to  be 
one  of  the  foregone  conclusions.  Mr.  McPherson  had  made 
the  canvass  for  the  Senatorship  by  leading  the  campaign,  and  it 
was  his  generalship  that  had  brought  two  Democratic  Houses  to 
Trenton  to  fill  the  vacancy.  The  Republican  gerrymander  of 
the  Assembly  districts  was  an  obstacle  that  was  not  easy  to  over- 
come and  he  had  not  been  over-willing  to  undertake  the  labors 
of  the  fight.  But  the  Democratic  leaders  had  urged  him  into 
the  campaign,  reminding  him  of  the  honors  the  party  had  paid 
him  by  twice  electing  him,  and  insisting  that  he  owed  to  it  at 
least  the  inspiration  and  boom  that  his  known  ambition  for 
re-election  would  impart  to  it.  That,  after  being  thus  prodded, 
he  had  made  a  successful  fight,  was  shown  by  the  Democratic 
majority  that  was  now  gathered  in  Trenton  to  name  the  Senator 
for  the  new  term ;  and  there  was  general  agreement  that  his 
re-election  was  the  fitting  reward  of  his  labors. 

As  the  time  for  the  holding  of  the  caucus  approached,  how- 
ever, whispers  crept  abroad  that  his  nomination  might  not  go  to 
him  so  unanimously  as  people  had  expected.  There  was  an 
ominous  quiet  among  the  friends  of  Governor  Abbett.  They 
were  not  active  enough  in  Senator  McPherson's  behalf  to  indi- 
cate a  loyal  adherence  to  his  cause.  Senator  McPherson  was 
not  disquieted  by  their  apathy  till  it  was  supplemented  by 
intimations  that  Governor  Abbett  himself  was  preparing  to 
enter  the  lists  against  him. 

The  situation  was  so  uncertain  that  the  Republicans  hoped  to 
profit  by  it  in  spite  of   the  adverse  majority  that  confronted 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  301 


them,  and  in  the  Republican  joint  caucuB  Senator  Nevius,  the 
one-armed  veteran  who  represented  Monmouth,  advieed  that  no 
candidate  be  selected  for  the  present.  Senator  Gardner,  of 
Atlantic,  protested  against  delay,  and  notwithstanding  Senator 
Nevius,  the  caucus  proceeded  to  the  selection  of  a  candidate. 
Captain  Smith,  one  of  the  Camden  Assemblymen,  presented 
General  Sewell's  name;  Senator  A.  F.  R.  Martin,  of  Essex, 
submitted  the  name  of  ex-Congressman  Geo.  A.  Haisey.  Gen- 
eral Sewell  had  a  majority  of  the  votes,  and  was  declared  the 
nominee. 

Meanwhile,  the  whisper  of  Governor  Abbett's  candidacy  had 
grown  to  be  more  than  a  whisper.  He  had  stepped  boldly  into 
the  open  and  announced  himself.  The  course  of  legislation  for 
the  last  two  or  three  years  had  summoned  a  new  factor  in  State 
politics  to  his  back.  The  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  Com- 
pany, which  had  been  using  the  New  Jersey  Central  Railroad 
Company's  line  and  terminal  facilities  to  reach  New  York,  had 
broken  its  contract  with  that  company.  It  had  laid  its  plans  to 
cross  the  State  to  a  point  near  Perth  Amboy,  and  then  bridge 
the  Kills  to  Staten  Island,  run  thence  to  the  south  shore,  and 
convey  its  passengers  across  the  bay  from  Staten  Island  on  ferry- 
boats. 

Under  the  General  Railroad  law  the  company  had  the  right 
to  construct  its  line  across  the  State,  but  when  it  reached  the 
water-front  at  the  Kills  it  was  confronted  by  the  absence  of  leg- 
islative authority  to  bridge.  Its  plans  contemplated  the  resting 
of  its  westerly  abutment  on  the  Jersey  shore.  This  being  im- 
possible without  invading  the  riparian  prerogatives  of  the  State, 
it  had  sought  relief  at  the  hands  of  the  Legislature.  The  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  lobby  oifered  bitter  opposition.  The  struggle 
was  a  renewal  in  another  form  of  the  old  railroad  rivalry  that 
had  ended  in  the  passage  of  the  General  Railroad  law  in  1872. 
Governor  Abbett  had  not  been  unfavorable  to  the  granting  of 
the  franchise  it  sought,  and  it  was  this  great  corporation  that 
came  to  his  back  now  and  made  him  a  formidable  candidate  for 
the  Senatorsbip  against  Mr.  McPherson,  whose  friendship  for 
the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  was  everywhere  known. 


502  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

A  "  still  hunt "  had  been  made  in  Governor  Abbett's  favor,  and 
Senator  McPhereon's  friends  were  on  the  edge  of  allowing  the 
caucus  to  meet  when,  to  their  surprise,  they  discovered  that 
Abbett  had  a  majority  of  the  votes  in  it. 

There  had  been  a  short  session  of  the  House  one  Monday 
night,  and  the  announcement  wag  made  from  the  Speaker's  chair 
that  the  caucus  would  take  possession  of  the  Assembly  Chamber 
immediately  after  adjournment.  Mr.  McPherson's  friends  had 
not  the  faintest  conception  of  Mr.  Abbett's  strength,  and  as  soon 
as  the  Republican  members  had  left  their  seats  the  Democratic 
Senators  were  admitted  to  the  Chamber  and  the  doors  were 
locked.  The  caucus  was  about  to  be  called  to  order  when  a 
precautionary  count  of  noses  showed  that  Abbett  was  far  in  the 
lead.  The  stunned  McPherson  men  were  thrown  into  confusion. 
But  they  had  an  advantage  in  having  the  Chairman  of  the  caucus 
with  them,  and  he  abstained  from  calling  the  caucus  to  order 
while  McPherson'e  agents  hastened  to  the  Chamber  to  button- 
hole and  argue  with  members.  The  State  House  has  seldom 
witnessed  such  a  lively  hustle  as  the  floor  of  the  Assembly 
Chamber  presented  for  the  next  half  hour.  Within  that  half 
hour  the  whole  aspect  of  the  situation  had  changed.  Mr.  Ab- 
bett had  lost  some  of  his  votes,  his  majority  had  been  destroyed, 
and,  on  the  roll-call,  Mr.  McPherson  had  25  of  the  43  votes. 

Those  who  voted  for  McPherson  were  Adrain,  Baker,  Bige- 
low,  Bogart,  Cutter,  Davis,  Donnelly,  Edwards,  Fagan,  Far- 
rell,  Francois,  Hudspeth,  Kalisch,  Kane,  Klotz,  Mallon,  Naugh- 
right,  Newell,  O'Neill,  Pfeiffer,  Potts,  P.  D.  Smith,  Trimmer, 
Werts,  Wyckoff. 

For  Abbett  were  Bale,  De  Ronde,  Everitt,  Feeney,  Heppen- 
heimer,  A.  A.  Higgins,  Hoover,  Keys,  Marsh,  Martin,  McDer- 
mit,  Mutchler,  Norton,  Patterson,  Schmelz,  Schroth,  Trier, 
Weidenmayer. 

On  the  following  day,  when  the  two  Houses  voted  separately 
for  Senator,  Mr.  McPherson  was  elected  in  each,  and  all  that  it 
was  necessary  to  do  in  the  joint  meeting  of  the  next  day  was  to 
read  the  journal  and  formally  declare  the  result.  When  the 
House  vote  was  taken,  Mr.  McD'ermit  put  Abbett  in  nomina- 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.         303 

tion  in  spite  of  the  caucus  decision  favoring  McPherson,  and  he 
probably  would  have  voted  for  him  but  for  the  fact  that  Mr. 
Heppenheimer  announced  in  the  Governor's  behalf  that  he  was 
not  a  candidate. 

Mr.  McPherson  was  the  only  Jerseyman  who  had  been 
honored  by  a  third  term  in  the  United  States  Senate.  At  the 
expiration  (in  1895)  of  the  term  for  which  he  was  now  elected 
he  had  served  the  State  in  the  greatest  legislative  body  in  the 
world  for  eighteen  continuous  years.  Mahlon  Dickerson,  who 
served  from  1817  to  1833,  was  the  only  one  whose  service  came 
anywhere  near  Mr.  McPherson's  in  length.  Jacob  W.  Miller,  who 
served  the  twelve  years  between  1841  and  1853,  and  Samuel  L. 
Southard,  with  two  years  to  his  credit  between  1821  and  1823 
and  nine  years  between  1833  and  1842,  comprise  the  list  of  those 
who  were  honored  with  more  than  one  term.  John  P.  Stock- 
ton, however,  was  favored  with  two  elections,  from  1865  till  he 
was  unseated  in  1866  by  Alexander  G.  Cattell,  and  then  for  the 
full  term  between  1869  and  1875. 

Governor  Abbett  was  not  by  any  means  as  badly  disappointed 
by  his  defeat  this  time  as  he  had  been  by  that  of  a  few  years 
before.  He  probably  had  had  no  large  notion  of  his  ability  to 
distance  Mr.  McPherson,  but  he  had  set  his  eye  determinedly  on 
the  Senatorship  of  1893,  when  Mr.  Blodgett's  term  was  to 
expire ;  and  it  was  probably  with  a  view  of  keeping  himself  in 
shape  for  that  historical  struggle  that  he  had  decided  to 
measure  swords  with  McPherson  on  this  occasion. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

Which  Shows  the  Origin  of  the  Ballot-Box  Stuffing  King,  ani> 

How  its  Invasion  of  Jersey  City  was  Almost  Defeated  by 

Senator  Peter  D.  Smith's  Gunning  Expedition 

into  a  South  Jersey  Swamp. 


XM 


■OT WITHSTANDING  that  its  personnel  was  fairly 
good,  the  Legislature  of  1889  won  the  reputation  of 
•^^  being  one  of  the  most  rapacious  that  had  ever  sat  io 
Trenton.  Even  the  newspapers  of  the  party  that 
dominated  it  declared  that  it  "  put  the  State  in  the  grip  of  the 
devil."  Partisanship  was  its  inspiration  from  the  commence- 
ment of  the  session  until  its  close.  One  of  its  acts  devised  an 
Assembly  gerrymander  that  made  that  body  even  less  repre- 
sentative than  it  had  been  allowed  to  be  under  the  Republican 
gerrymander.  It  repealed  some  beneficial  election  laws  that  the 
Republican  Legislature  had  passed — like  the  personal  rfgistra- 
tion  act;  and  other  election  laws  of  a  more  partisan  flavor  that 
the  Republicans  had  enacted — like  that  aimed  at  the  working- 
man's  vote,  which  directed  that  the  polls,  ordinarily  open  until 
seven  o'clock  in  the  evening,  should  close  at  sundown.  It  devoted 
an  entire  week  to  the  passage  of  a  bill  overturning  the  whole 
licensing  system  in  towns  for  the  aid  of  a  saloon-keeper  in  a 
Warren  county  village  the  authorities  of  which  had  refused  ta 
permit  him  to  open  his  doors.  But  that  was  only  a  type  of  its 
legislation.  There  was  scarcely  a  locality  that  escaped  ransack- 
ing in  the  search  for  partisan  spoils;  and  changes  of  system 
were  made  in  local  governments,  as  with  a  kaleidoscope,  to 
secure  the  most  trifling  party  advantages.  The  revolutionizing 
of  the  municipal  system  in  Jersey  City  was  the  most  important 
and  far-reaching  of  its  partisan  activities  in  thi^  direction, 

(304) 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  305 


Governor  Abbett's  announcement,  at  the  time  of  his  formal 
acceptance  of  the  gubernatorial  nomination  in  1883,  that  the 
men  who  did  the  work  should  have  the  offices,  had  been  vital- 
ized by  the  bestowal  of  all  the  places  within  his  gift  upon  the 
spoilsmen  of  the  party.  He  had  made  his  battle  for  the  suprem- 
acy over  the  "kid-glove  aristocrats"  of  the  old  State  House 
regime  in  the  name  of  the  laboring  men  of  the  State  and  on  the 
plea  that  they  had  been  denied  the  participation  in  party  coun- 
cils to  which  their  voting  strength  entitled  them.  When  the 
battle  had  been  won  on  these  lines,  the  honest  wage-earners  were 
pushed  aside  and  the  recognition  he  had  asked  for  them  was 
conferred  in  their  name  upon  a  breed  of  low-grade  professional 
politicians  who  had  nothing  in  common  with  them  except  that 
they  were  needy.  It  was  not  so  much  that  he  had  lifted  men 
of  humble  origin  from  lowly  stations  into  positions  of  promi- 
nence and  power,  as  that  the  men  whom  he  thus  elevated  were 
of  ignoble  ambitions,  self-seekers  and  in  politics  for  what  it  was 
worth.  The  legislation  that  benefited  that  class  had  his  readiest 
assent ;  and  through  his  countenance  of  the  series  of  acts  by  which 
local  governments  everywhere  were  re-organized,  he  assisted  this 
unworthy  throng  to  reach  out  for  the  control  of  the  communi- 
ties all  over  the  State. 

No  county  in  the  State  so  quickly  reflected  this  change  of  base 
in  party  politics  as  Hudson.  Bills  that  had  been  passed  during 
Mr.  Abbett's  first  administration  had  enabled  the  ward-heeler 
and  the  creature  of  the  slums  there  to  crowd  themselves  into 
many  of  the  public  places ;  and  the  local  offices  were  overrun, 
as  the  State  places  were,  by  a  rabble  of  cheap  sports  and  bar- 
room loungers  who  looked  to  the  spoils  of  place  for  their  living. 

The  social  and  political  upheaval  that  brought  this  element  to 
the  front  and  relegated  all  the  better  men  of  the  party  to  the 
rear  in  the  county,  was  personified  in  the  domination  of  four 
typical  local  leaders.  They  were  Robert  Davis,  Dennis  Mc- 
Laughlin, John  P.  Feeney  and  Patrick  H.  O'Neill. 

McLaughlin  was  a  shrewd  and  frank  kind  of  a  fellow  who 
ran  a  news  stand  and  cigar  store  in  a  little  shanty  in  the  upper 
part  of  the  city.     His  newspaper  route  extended  in  every  direc- 

20 


306  MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON. 

tion  through  the  tenemeDt  district  that  surrounded  him.  A  man 
of  sober  habits,  attentive  to  business,  good-natured  and  genial, 
he  easily  made  friends,  and  his  dingy  little  shop  soon  became 
thronged  with  those  who  managed  the  primaries  in  the  district. 
When  in  these  smoky  councils  they  decided  to  make  a  long  pull 
and  a  strong  pull  and  a  pull  all  together  for  a  favorite  seeker 
after  a  political  place,  it  was  "  Denny  "  whom  they  sent  out  to 
be  their  spokesman,  and  from  his  success  in  securing  appoint- 
ments he  came  to  be  looked  upon  eventually  as  something  of  a 
local  boss. 

Feeney  was  one  of  his  satellites.  He,  too,  was  whole-souled,, 
with  a  rough  and  hearty  air  well  calculated  to  make  him  popu- 
lar among  his  kind.  There  is  a  tradition  that  he  was  driving  a 
wagon  for  a  living  when  McLaughlin  discovered  him  and  took 
him  to  his  bosom  as  a  man  after  his  own  heart.  McLaughlin 
had  already  succeeded  in  laughing  and  talking  himself  into  an 
Assembly  seat,  and  Feeney  also  managed  to  "jolly"  himself 
into  the  Legislature  of  1889  as  the  representative  of  the  same 
district. 

Davis  was  a  gas- measurer,  whose  business  it  was  to  take  the 
state  of  the  meters  in  the  houses  in  the  south  part  of  the  city  for 
one  of  the  local  gas  companies.  He  made  his  home  in  a  shabby 
tenement  on  Bright  street,  in  Jersey  City.  He  was  very  short 
of  stature  and  very  stalwart  of  build,  and  had  apparently  been 
stood  upon  his  Legs  too  early  in  life  for  his  physical  beauty.  He 
was  very  broad  at  the  shoulders,  and  above  them  was  a  round 
bullet  head,  fronted  with  a  shrewd,  cold,  livid  face.  He  talked 
little  but  thought  a  good  deal,  and  though  a  man  of  no  educa- 
tion whatever,  was  looked  upon  as  of  exceptionally  keen  natural 
parts. 

O'Neill  was  glad  to  earn  $60  a  month  as  a  messenger  in  the 
office  of  James  H.  Love,  the  Republican  City  Collector  of 
Jersey  City.  He  had  been  a  drummer-boy  during  the  Rebel- 
lion, and  though  a  young  man  still,  was  yet  pardonably  proud 
to  be  known  as  a  veteran  of  the  war.  The  nature  of  their 
business  brought  him  and  Davis  into  contact  with  throngs  of 
citizens,  and,  because  of  the  help  their  wide  acquaintanceship 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


307 


> 


enabled  them  to  give  incidentally  to  the  candidates  for  office,  they 
came  to  be  looked  upon  in  that  particular  part  of  the  city  as  of 
some  value  among  election-workers.  With  McLaughlin  and 
Feeney  in  the  north  end  of  the  city,  and  these  two  in  the  south 
end,  The  Big  Four,  as  they  were  locally  called,  found  it  possi- 
ble, by  combining  their  forces,  to  exert  a  decisive  influence  in 
the  city  and  county  conventions  ;  and  eventually  it  came  to  them 
that  they  might  utilize  the  power  they  thus  found  themselves 
possessed  of  for  their  own  emolument  and  advancement. 

They  were   shrewd 
enough  to  see  that  the  _ 

Sheriff's  office  was  the 
pivotal  one  in  the  ma- 
nipulation  of    county  ■;  y 
affairs.    The  Sheriff  is                      v             ^J'    ^^ 
the    executive    officer 
of  the  courts.     All  of 
the  court's  orders  are 
entrusted  to   him   for 
execution.     But   his 
essential    function    in 
the  development   and 
perfecting   of   the 
scheme   the    combina- 
tion had  in  view  was 
that   of  selecting   the 
grand  and  petty  juries. 
The  grand  juries  are 
the  agencies  through  which  men  guilty  of  crime  are  presented  to 
the  courts  for  trial.     If  the  grand  jury  indicts,  the  courts  can  try. 
The  failure  of  a  grand  jury  to  indict  is  an  impassable  barrier  to 
the  trial  and  punishment  of  any  criminal,  however  guilty,  or 
whatever  his  offense. 

In  the  selection  of  a  grand  jury  the  Sheriff  therefore  held 
great  power.  He  could  protect  his  friends  by  drawing  juries 
that  would  refuse  to  indict  them,  and  punish  his  enemies  by 
having  his  grand  juries  present  them  even  though  they  were 


Robert  Davis. 


308  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

innocent.  Grand  juries  in  Hudson  had  been  known  to  play 
with  justice  in  this  fashion;  and  when  Robert  Davis  announced 
himself  as  a  candidate  for  the  nomination  of  the  Democratic 
party  for  Sheriff,  it  was  easily  guessed  that  he  was  seeking  the 
office  for  the  opportunities  it  offered  for  just  such  an  abuse  of  its 
great  prerogatives.  This  suspicion  was  intensified  when  the 
character  of  the  men  who  supported  his  candidacy  was  observed. 
Every  man  of  shady  occupation  in  the  county  was  his  hot  advo- 
cate, and  there  seemed  to  be  an  instinctive  realization  among  the 
people  that  he  was  going  to  the  Sheriff's  office  as  the  pledged 
protector  of  vice. 

Public  distrust  was  so  deep  and  public  alarm  so  great,  that 
party  lines  were  lost  sight  of  in  the  agitation  his  candidacy  pro- 
voked ;  and,  after  a  convention  packed  with  his  followers  had 
made  him  the  nominee  of  the  Democratic  party,  bodies  of  Demo- 
crats flocked  to  the  Republicans  for  escape  from  his  election. 
As  the  county  was  Democratic,  there  was  an  idea  that  the  nomi- 
nation of  an  independent  Democrat  against  him  might  with- 
draw from  his  support  a  sufficient  Democratic  vote  to  insure  the 
success  of  an  opposition  candidate. 

When  the  Republican  county  convention  met,  another  con- 
vention representing  these  drifting  independents  of  the  other 
party  was  in  session  to  confer  with  them.  The  Republicans 
agreed  to  defer  the  selection  of  a  candidate  until  they  had 
learned  the  desire  of  the  opposition  Democrats,  and  the  result 
was  a  fusion  movement  and  the  nomination  of  Cornelius  J. 
Cronan  as  Davis's  opponent.  Cronan  was  a  Democrat,  who  had 
served  one  term  as  Sheriff,  but  he  had  also  done  duty  under 
Republican  Sheriffs  as  their  Chief  Deputy  with  great  accepta- 
bility; and  the  announcement  of  the  coalition  upon  him  was 
received  with  an  enthusiasm  that  seemed  to  be  a  harbinger  of 
its  success. 

Davis  was  alarmed  at  the  wholesale  desertions  from  his  party 
and  he  began  to  lay  plans  to  offset  them  by  taking  from  Cronan 
some  of  the  Republican  support  upon  which  he  counted.  Before 
a  week  had  gone  by  he  had  succeeded  in  getting  together  a  little 
handful  of  Republican  allies,  who  professed  to  be  dissatisfied 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON. 


309 


with  the  presence  of  a  Democrat  at  the  head  of  their  county 
ticket.  Setting  up  a  hue  and  cry  that  Republican  voters  de- 
manded a  straight  Republican  nominee,  they  entered  the  field 
with  David  W.  Lawrence,  once  a  city  Police  Magistrate,  as  their 
candidate. 

The  battle  conducted  on  these  lines  was  one  of  the  bitterest 
the  county  had  ever  seen.  Lawrence  divided  the  Republican 
vote  with  Cronan,  but  not  to  as  large  an  extent  as  the  Davis 
managers  had  anticipated ;  and  there  was  no  doubt  among  the 
election  experts  when  the 
polls  closed  that  the  anti- 
Davis  fusion  ticket — and 
Cronan — bad  won.  All 
of  the  polling- places  in 
the  county  had  been 
manned  by  Davis's  own 
appointees,  however,  and 
the  figures  returned  by 
this  suborned  crowd 
showed  the  election  of 
Davis  by  a  narrow  ma- 
jority. There  was  scarce 
a  man  in  the  county  of 
either  party  but  knew  in 
his  inner  consciousness 
that  Davis's  heelers  and 
adherents  at  the  polls 
had  fraudulently  counted 

him  in ;  and  hosts  of  Cronan 's  friends  urged  him  to  uncover 
the  frauds  by  demanding  from  the  court  a  recount  of  the  ballots 
cast  throughout  the  county.  Not  a  man  of  large  means,  how- 
ever, Cronan  did  not  feel  that  he  could  incur  the  pecuniary  outlay 
that  such  an  investigation  would  require,  and  so  it  happened 
that,  within  ten  days^^after  he  had  been  declared  elected,  Davis 
assumed  the  duties  of  the  shrievalty  of  the  county. 

His  succession  to  the  office  was  ihe  signal  for  aggressive 
activity,  in  political  and  official  circles,  of  whole  rafts  of  dia- 


Cornelius  J.  Cronan. 


310  MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON. 

credited  men.  They  had  been  tempted  to  the  surface  by  the 
understanding  that  as  long  as  they  kept  themselves  "  solid  with 
the  Sheriff,"  he  would  see  that  they  were  protected  from  the 
pursuit  of  the  courts  by  his  grand  juries.  No  community  had 
ever  suffered  such  an  invasion.  The  spectacle  was  one  that 
enforced  the  demand  for  a  change  in  the  system  of  selecting 
members  of  this  important  body;  and  the  Republican  Legis- 
lature of  1888  took  the  function  out  of  his  hands  and  directed 
the  Judges  of  the  courts  in  the  several  counties  to  appoint 
special  commissioners  in  each  to  name  the  grand  juries. 
Almost  the  first  thing  that  the  Democrats  did,  on  regaining  con- 
trol of  the  Legislature  in  1889,  was  to  repeal  the  Commission 
act  and  restore  the  power  of  naming  the  grand  juries  to  the 
Sheriff. 

Hudson  county  was  thus  again  placed  at  the  mercy  of  the 
gangs.  Saloon  doors  were  thrown  wide  open  on  Sunday,  and 
the  ears  of  passing  church  people  were  offended  by  the  sound  of 
clicking  glasses  and  the  noisy  revelry  of  the  roystering  crowds 
within.  Gambling- houses  sprouted  up  all  over.  Pool- sellers, 
banished  from  New  York,  ran  their  places  with  swinging  doors 
on  the  chief  thoroughfares.  Policy-shops  were  on  every  hand. 
Sharks  and  sharpers  trapped  the  unwary  at  every  corner. 

And  no  one  was  ever  brought  to  j  ustice. 

The  Jersey  City  charter  incident  of  the  legislation  of  1889 
gives  color  to  the  suspicion  that  the  protection  of  these  smaller 
irregularities  was  not  the  chief  object  for  which  the  control  of 
the  Sheriff's  office  had  been  seized.  The  subsequent  history  of 
events  scarce  leaves  room  for  doubt  that  the  greater  end  they 
had  in  view  was  the  invasion  of  the  municipal  treasuries.  Jer- 
sey City,  with  her  complicated  municipal  system  that  gave 
employment  to  a  small  army  of  retainers  and  placemen,  and  her 
.$100,000,000  of  taxable  assets,  became  the  object  of  a  most 
earnest  and  determined  attack.  The  combined  Four  had 
already  succeeded  in  securing  the  control  of  the  chief  of  the 
city  offices  by  the  advancement  of  Orestes  Cleveland  to  the 
Mayoralty,  and  now,  in  1889,  with  a  Legislature  of  their  own 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         311 

kind  to  aid  them,  they  began  to  lay  their  plans  to  make  him  the 
central  power  in  the  management  of  city  affairs. 

Mr.  Cleveland  was  no  longer  the  rich  and  powerful  man  he 
had  been.  The  Dixon  Crucible  Company,  which  had  yielded 
him  a  large  income,  had  been  led  into  financial  embarrassments 
and  under  circumstances  which  led  Mr.  Cleveland  to  prudently 
seclude  himself  from  the  public  eye.  When,  after  the  lapse  of 
several  years,  he  thought  he  might  emerge  from  the  cloud  which 
had  enveloped  the  failure,  he  started  out  to  rehabilitate  himself 
by  seeking  political  positions.  The  first  one  within  reach  at  the 
time  was  the  Jersey  City  Mayoralty.  Nominations  for  that 
office  had  not  gone  by  favor,  but,  though  a  poor  man  and  with- 
out money  to  spend,  Mr.  Cleveland  was  not  discouraged  in  his 
pursuit  of  that  shining  distinction.  He  went  among  "the 
boys "  who  had  been  the  recipients  of  his  hospitality  in  his 
more  prosperous  days,  reminding  them  of  what  he  had  done  for 
them,  and  made  a  sympathetic  canvass  among  them  for  their  aid 
^nd  support.  "  The  boys  "  were  not  wholly  ungrateful,  and  this 
"  handkerchief  campaign,"  as  they  jocularly  called  it,  was  a 
success.  He  was  given  the  nomination  and  elected.  And,  in 
their  plans  for  the  seizure  of  the  city  government  now,  they 
felt  assured  of  his  co-operation. 

The  device  by  which  they  expected  to  work  out  their  aim 
contemplated  the  displacement  of  the  Republican  hold-over  offi- 
cials who  still  stood  guard  at  the  doors  of  the  treasury,  and  the 
replacing  of  them  with  a  more  complacent  lot  of  friends  of 
their  own  whom  he  stood  ready  to  appoint  at  their  bidding. 
This  could  be  easily  enough  accomplished  by  the  passage  of  an 
act  ending  the  terms  of  all  the  men  in  the  public  places  in  the 
^ity  and  conferring  upon  the  Mayor  the  power  of  naming  their 
successors. 

The  conditions  were  not  unfavorable  to  such  a  revolution  in 
the  municipal  system.  The  government  in  Jersey  City  was  still 
a  modified  form  of  the  old  system  of  legislative  local  commis- 
sions with  which  the  Republican  ring  of  the  early  '70's  had 
taken  possession  of  the  city.  The  commissions  were  yet  in  con- 
trol of  each  department — not  appointed,  as  at  the  start,  in  a 


312  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

partisan  joint  meeting  at  Trenton — elected  nominally,  but  upon 
the  basis  of  a  partisan  Republican  gerrymander  of  the  city 
wards  that  enabled  the  Republicans  to  hold  control  of  them. 
Their  domination  was  distasteful  to  the  overwhelming  Demo- 
cratic sentiment  of  the  citizens,  and  there  had  long  been  a  desul- 
tory and  intermittent  series  of  agitations  for  a  change  that  would 
enable  the  party  in  the  majority  to  come  by  its  own.  The  city's 
new  invaders  utilized  this  sentiment  and  intensified  it  by  pre- 
arranged newspaper  clamor  till  it  had  crystallized  ;  and  then 
they  began  to  frame  a  new  charter  for  the  city  upon  the  lines 
most  agreeable  to  their  purposes. 

Brooklyn  had  just  taken  on  the  one-man  form  of  government 
they  had  in  mind,  and  Seth  Low's  Mayoralty  there  had  made 
the  system  so  popular  that  it  was  presumed  Jersey  City  would' 
eagerly  embrace  it.  There  was  yet  the  chance  that  the  revelries 
of  waste  and  corruption  in  which  they  expected  to  indulge 
might  arouse  the  people  to  put  an  end  to  the  saturnalia  by  elect- 
ing a  Mayor  who  would  refuse  to  serve  them.  But  suppose  the 
ring  were  to  re-elect  Cleveland  by  sending  confederates  who 
would  stuff  the  ballot-boxes  in  his  interest  to  the  polling-places 
when  the  new  election  came  around !  What  could  the  people 
do  about  it  ? 

Well,  they  could  send  the  ballot-box  stuffers  to  State  Prison. 
But  that  contingency  was  already  met  by  the  fact  that  the  grand 
jurors  who  must  indict  them  and  the  petty  jurors  who  must 
convict  them  were  to  be  chosen  by  a  Sheriff  in  sympathy  with 
them ;  and,  of  course,  he  would  protect  his  own. 

The  plot  had  been  carefully  worked  out  to  these  conclusions 
when  the  smooth-tongued  Edwards,  representing  Hudson  county 
in  the  State  Senate,  submitted  the  One- Man- Power  bill  to  his 
Democratic  colleagues  from  Jersey  City  in  the  Assembly.  He 
found  them  in  a  hesitating  frame  of  mind.  Speaker  Hudspeth 
looked  askance  at  it.  Others  of  the  local  delegation  refused  to 
consider  it  till  they  learned  how  it  was  going  to  profit  them  per- 
sonally. They  were  promised  one  office  after  another  under  the 
re-organized  government  for  their  votes,  and  the  bill  was  finally^ 
progressed  toward  enactment. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         SIS 


The  moment  it  reached  the  committee- room,  it  encountered 
another  obstacle.     To  evade  the  State  Constitution's  requirement 
that  all  municipal  legislation  shall  be  by  general  act,  Senator 
Edwards  had  drawn  the  bill  in  general  form.     In  that  shape  it 
overturned  not  only  the  local  government  of  Jersey  City  but 
the  local  government  of  Newark  as  well.     And  Newark  was 
not  yet  prepared  to  thus  place  herself  at  the  mercy  of  a  single 
man — though  later  a  similar  group  of  public  managers  led  her 
into  the  same  trap.     But  just  now  things  were  not  ripe  for  the 
institution  of  the  system 
there,  and  her  members 
would    consent    to    no 
change  in  her  form  of 
government.    The  diffi- 
culty was  eventually 
overcome  by  an  amend- 
ment that  the  act  should 
be  effective  only  in  the 
cities  that  accepted  it  by 
popular  vote.     Newark 
would    take     no     step 
toward   accepting  itj 
and  it  would  not  reach 
her.     The  Jersey  City 
plotters  were   prepared 
to   see   it  submitted  to 
popular    vote    at     the 
charter  election  there  and  put  through  at  all  hazards. 

The  charter  election  was  to  be  held  on  Tuesday,  April  3d. 
It  was  late  in  March  before  it  had  been  found  possible  to  adjust 
all  differences  and  start  the  bill  on  its  way  through  the  Assembly. 
Its  passage  there  was  provokingly  slow,  and  it  was  not  till  the 
Thursday  before  the  charter  election  that  it  was  put  through  the 
stage  of  final  passage  in  the  Assembly  Chamber.  It  was  necessary 
that  sufficient  public  notice  of  the  special  vote  should  be  gi  ven .  It 
had  been  reduced  to  three  days.  Only  on  the  assumption  that  the 
bill  could  be  pushed  through  the  Senate  on  the  following  day  was 


William  D.  Edwards. 


su 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


jiv^V'tr. 


even  three  days'  notice  possible.  The  Assembly  Clerk  rushed 
the  act  to  the  Senate  Chamber  at  once.  The  Republicans 
objected  to  its  immediate  consideration,  and  under  the  rules  it 
had  to  lay  over  without  action  till  the  next  day.  Then  a  single 
objection  could  avail  to  prevent  its  being  put  through  two  read- 
ings in  one  day,  and  the  anxious  crew  were  fearful  that  it  could 
not  be  enacted  in  time  for  the  charter  election.  They  had  noth- 
ing to  do,  when  the  objection  to  its  immediate  consideration  was 
■  made,  but  to  let  it  cool  for  a  day  and  trust  to  luck  for  the  rest. 

Friday  came  all  too 
slowly  for  them,  and 
when  it  broke  they 
learned  to  their  con- 
sternation that  Senator 
Peter  D.  Smith,  of  Sus- 
sex, was  not  among  the 
present.  The  Senate 
had  eleven  Democrats 
and  ten  Republicans  in 
it.  With  Smith  out  of 
his  seat,  the  Senate  was 
tied  politically,  and  the 
passage  of  the  bill  was 
impossible. 

No  one  knew  where 

Smith    was.        Colonel 

Dickinson,  the  chief  of 

bill,   laughiogly   confessed 

hidden  Smith  in  a    dis- 

found.     Messengers   were 

They  came  back  without 


John  P.  Feeney. 

the  Republican  opponents  of  the" 
to  the  foiled  plotters  that  he  had 
tant  woods  where  he  could  not  be 
scurried  in  all  directions  for  J  him. 
tidings.  Mrs.  Smith  was  importuned  by  telegraph  to  flash 
back  his  address  with  the  return  spark.  She  only  answered 
that  the  dispatch  of  inquiry  was  the  first  intimation  she  had 
had  that  he  was  not  in  Trenton.  The  day  had  advanced  to 
noon  before  they  learned  that  he  had  gone  on  a  hunting  expe- 
dition  into   the   pines   near   Manahawken,   in   Ocean   county. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  316 

Dispatches  sent  to  him  there  brought  no  response,  and  Assembly- 
men Feeney  and  O'Neill  were  deputed  to  go  after  him. 

It  was  a  circuitous  route  to  Manahawken  from  Trenton. 
Four  or  five  changes  of  cars  at  little  cross-road  stations  were 
necessary.  To  pass  either  one  of  these  change  stations  was  to 
be  carried  into  Philadelphia  or  landed  at  some  inaccessible 
point  in  Cumberland  county.  Senator  Pfeiffer,  of  Camden, 
accompanied  them  to  see  that  they  missed  none  of  the  necessary 
connections.  They  did  not  fail  to  observe  as  they  traveled,  that 
Senator  Cranmer,  of  Ocean,  one  of  the  Republican  minority, 
was  on  the  same  train,  and  that  as  often  as  they  changed  he 
changed.  He  protested  that  he  was  merely  on  his  way  home 
for  the  recess,  "  though  when  we  asked  him  one  time,"  said 
O'Neill,  in  telling  the  story,  "  how  to  go  to  Manahawken,  he 
gave  us  a  crooked  steer." 

Chaperoned  by  the  posted  Camden  Senator,  the  two  anxious 
statesmen  reached  Manahawken,  only  to  find  that  the  man  they 
sought  was  buried  in  the  marshes  at  Harvey  Cedars,  miles  and 
miles  beyond.  It  was  then  nine  o'clock  at  night.  The  last 
train  had  left  and  the  last  of  the  night-owls  that  congregated 
at  the  tavern  were  preparing  to  go  to  their  cabins. 

"  I  was  interested  to  learn  that  the  gentleman  who  kept  the 
hotel  was  named  Lippincott,"  O'Neill  remarked,  "  and  that  he 
was  a  cousin  of  Judge  Job  Lippincott.  I  told  him  my  story, 
but  he  said  he  could  think  of  no  way  to  help  me  out. 

"  '  Can't  we  walk  to  Harvey  Cedars  ? '  I  asked  him. 

"  '  Why,  it's  pitch  dark,'  was  his  answer,  '  and  in  your  path  is 
a  trestle  bridge  a  mile  long,  with  a  draw  two  hundred  feet  wide 
that's  always  open  at  night.  If  you  could  pick  your  way 
through  the  woods  to  the  bridge,  you'd  fall  through  the  sleepers 
when  you  reached  it.' 

"A  hand-car  lay  on  the  track  near  the  tavern.  Why  not 
use  that  ?  The  man  in  whose  care  it  had  been  left  refused  to 
allow  it  to  be  moved.  We  telegraphed  to  the  President  of  the 
Road  for  his  consent,  and  his  answering  dispatch  placed  the  car 
at  our  service.  When  everything  was  in  readiness,  we  leaped 
to  the  top  of  the  car  platform.     The  night  was  as  cold  as  it  was 


316  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

dark.  Several  insisted  on  going  with  us,  and  there  were  nine 
men  crowded  on  that  flat-car  into  a  space  scarcely  large  enough 
for  four.  As  the  motor-men  pumped  at  the  handle  that  drove 
the  machine  they  were  in  danger  of  knocking  one  of  us  off  with 
their  see- sawing  arms  and  elbows.  There  was  not  a  ray  of  light, 
and  we  had  to  call  the  roll  every  five  minutes  to  assure  ourselves 
that  no  one  had  dropped  his  grip  in  the  cold  and  been  lost  in 
the  dark.  The  ripple  of  the  waters  alone  admonished  us  when 
we  reached  the  bridge.  One  of  our  attendants  almost  lost 
his  life  climbing  down  to  use  the  key  that  swung  the  draw  to. 
He  did  it  and  we  passed  on  in  safety.  It  took  us  two  hours 
then  to  get  into  Harvey  Cedars.  When  we  struck  the  inn 
there,  the  bar-room  was  alive  with  fishermen  and  hazy  with  the 
smoke  of  their  pipes.     Smith  was  not  among  them. 

" '  Where  is  he  ? '  we  asked. 

"  *  In  bed,'  was  the  response. 

''  Well,  now,  it  didn't  take  us  long  to  rout  him  out,  and  bid 
him  prepare  to  go  back  with  us  to  Manahawken  on  that  hand- 
car. Hunting- boots  and  game-bag  and  corduroy  coat  and  short 
pants  were  hustled  on  him  in  a  twinkling,  and  stopping  only  for 
a  warm  supper  we  hastened  back  to  the  cross-roads  station  at 
Manahawken  with  him." 

Smith  explained  on  his  way  back  that  Senate  President  Werts 
had  on  Thursday  granted  him  a  leave  of  absence,  and  that  he 
had  left  on  his  hunting  expedition  without  the  remotest  idea 
that  his  services  would  be  needed  during  the  week  again.  An 
hour  after  he  had  been  hurried  away  from  the  Cedars,  a  yacht 
chartered  by  the  Republicans  sailed  to  the  landing  to  carry  him 
even  farther  off  from  his  pursuers. 

It  was  usual  for  the  Senate  to  close  its  session  for  the  week 
on  Thursday.  It  had  been  held  over  till  Friday  this  week  to  act 
on  the  charter  measure.  It  was  delayed  till  Saturday  to  await 
Smith.  The  Sussex  Senator  was  an  object  of  more  than  politi- 
cal interest  when  he  reached  the  capitol  building.  He  was  in 
his  unique  hunting  costume  when  he  walked  to  his  seat  in  the 
Senate  Chamber  between  twelve  and  one  o'clock  on  that  fateful 
Saturday  to  say  "  aye  "  to  the  passage  of  the  new  charter  and 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         317 

make  the  eleventh  vote  needed  to  send  it  to  the  Governor's 
hands.  Couriers  hastened  with  the  act  to  the  Executive  Cham- 
ber, and  within  twenty  minutes  it  had  received  Governor  Green's 
signature. 

It  was  a  serious  legal  question  whether,  between  that  noon  of 
Saturday  and  the  election  Tuesday  following,  the  three  days' 
notice  of  the  election  which  the  bill  required  was  possible.  But 
Mayor  Cleveland's  brother,  Jeremiah  B.  Cleveland,  dashed  off 
to  a  train  with  the  act  and  arrived  in  Jersey  City  between  three 
and  four  o'clock.  It  was  necessary  that  City  Clerk  John  E. 
Scott  should  publish  the  notice  in  the  local  papers  of  that  after- 
noon to  be  at  all  within  the  meaning  of  the  law.  The  papers 
had  all  gone  to  press  for  the  day.  But  their  editors  were  per- 
suaded to  run  extra  editions  to  make  the  notice  public.  Popular 
suspicion  had  been  aroused  by  the  eagerness  and  precipitancy 
with  which  the  scheme  was  being  perfected,  and  the  Sunday 
and  Monday  left  for  discussion  among  them  showed  a  marked 
sentiment  against  it.  But  there  were  the  men  at  the  election 
boxes  to  make  up  any  deficiency  in  the  vote,  and  when  the 
ballots  had  been  counted  on  Tuesday  night  an  apparent  majority 
in  favor  of  the  acceptance  of  the  new  form  of  government  was 
revealed  by  the  face  of  the  returns. 

Mayor  Cleveland  was  now  master  of  the  situation.  He  had 
every  office  in  the  city  at  his  disposal.  If  he  could  have  risen 
to  the  magnitude  of  his  opportunities,  he  would  have  won  lasting 
honor  for  himself  and  conferred  lasting  glory  upon  Jersey  City. 
But  he  was  so  tethered  around  with  engagements  and  pledges 
that  he  had  no  free  will  in  the  formation  of  the  new  govern- 
ment ;  and  he  placed  the  gang  that  had  passed  the  bill  in  con- 
trol. He  began  by  rewarding  the  men  who  had  voted  for  it 
in  the  two  Houses.  Senator  Edwards  was  made  Corporation 
Counsel  and  Speaker  Hudspeth  Corporation  Attorney.  Assem- 
blyman Feeney  was  placed  in  control  of  the  Police  Department. 
Assemblyman  O'Neill  was  made  chief  of  the  office  in  which  he 
had  been  serving  as  a  messenger.  Assemblyman  Norton  was 
given  a  police  court  clerkship.  A  friend  of  Assemblyman 
Heppenheimer  was  made  a  member  of  the  Tax  Board.     Assem- 


318 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


blyman  Peter  T.  Donnelly  alone  refused  to  receive  any  reward 
for  his  vote.  The  rest  of  the  public  places  were  filled  with  eon- 
federates  of  the  Ring,  and  the  plot  to  seize  possession  of  the  city^ 
treasury  was  consummated  by  success. 

All  their  plans  would  have  been  nipped  in  the  bud  by  the 
election  of  a  Mayor  not  in  sympathy  with  them,  in  the  spring 
of  the  following  year,  when    Mr.  Cleveland's   term   expired. 

With  the  aid  of  a 
packed  convention, 
Mayor  Cleveland  was 
put  in  nomination 
again.  There  were 
signs  of  revolt  on  all 
sides,  and  in  the  belief 
that  the  anti-ring 
Democracy  would  aid 
their  candidate,  the 
Republicans  were  un- 
usually careful  in  se- 
lecting their  nominee. 
George  F.  Perkins,  a 
wealthy  Bergen  ave- 
nue business  man,  was 
chosen ;  and  it  became 
an  open  secret,  after 
Perkins  had  failed  of 
election,  that  Mr. 
Cleveland  was  saved 
from  defeat  only  by 
the  frauds  of  exposed 
ballot-box  stuff  ers. 
It  was  not  till  the  gangs  of  plunderers  broke  into  two  factions 
two  years  later,  and  engaged  in  a  quarrel  over  the  spoils  of 
place,  that  the  people  succeeded  in  taking  the  control  of  public 
affairs  out  of  the  hands  of  the  lawless  mob  by  the  election  of 
Colonel  P.  F.  Wanser  to  the  Mayoralty. 

This  consummation  was  not  reached,  however  till  most  of  the 


Patrick  H.  O'Neill. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  319- 

members  of  the  combine  had  grown  rich.  Feeney  figured  as 
the  purchaser  of  mortgages  and  of  houses.  Davis  moved  from 
the  tenement  attic  in  which  he  had  been  making  his  home  to  a 
home  all  alone  by  himself  on  Grove  street.  O'Neill,  with  a  lively 
sense  of  the  hardships  with  which  the  want  of  an  education  had 
surrounded  his  own  career,  sent  his  children  to  the  aristocratic 
schools.  The  decline  of  the  public  morals  was  shown  by  the 
acclaim  with  which  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  of  the  city  hailed  him  to 
its  membership  when  he  consented  to  join.  McLaughlin  bought 
whole  rows  of  brownstone  fronts,  and,  closing  his  little  shop  on 
Pavonia  avenue,  moved  to  a  handsome  and  capacious  brown- 
stone  front  on  Hamilton  Park,  though  it  must  be  said  for  him 
that  his  wealth  came  from  the  race-tracks  and  not  from  partici- 
pation in  public  plunder.  What  was  true  of  them  was  also  true 
of  their  satellites  in  smaller  measure.  Bar-room  loungers  of  the 
era  before  the  inauguration  of  this  carnival  of  corruption  in- 
dulged in  champagne  sprees  and  rode  in  chaises. 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

"Wherein  Generai,  Grubb  Measured  Lances  with  Governor  Abbett, 

AFTER  John  Y.  Foster  and  J.  Frank  Fort  Had  Crossed  Swords 

ON  THE  Indorsement  of  the  Local  Option  Legislation. 


/he  vicious  atmosphere  that  was  thus  made  to  overspread 
Jersey  City  soon  enveloped  most  of  the  other  munici- 
palities.   Parvenu  leaders  sprang  up  everywhere.    En- 
trenched by  being  made  the  recognized  dispensers  of 
State  patronage,   they   became  the   heroes  of  the   heelers  and 
of  the  parasites  of  the  party.     To  perpetuate  their  dominion 
they   linked   arms   with    everything    else    that    was   disrepu- 
table   in    the    State, 
in  a  movement  to  cap- 
ture the  new  Governor 
and  to  control  the  new 
Legislature.     Several 
new  race-tracks,  that  in- 
vited   uncanny   crowds 
which  the  people  were 
disposed  to  drive  back, 
had    been    planted   all 
over  the  State's  soil  and 
the  jockeys  became  their 
allies.     The  liquor  men 
dissatisfied  with  the  ex- 
isting laws  governing  the 
traffic,  joined  in,  in  the 
hope  of  securing  some- 
thing   more    favorable. 
Leon  Abbett,  having  introduced  the  new  throng  to  the  scene 
of  action,  was  now  asked  to  take  the  Governorship  again  to  lead 
(320) 


Gen.  E.  Burd  Grubb. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         321- 


them  in  their  new  conquests.  He  was  a  consenting  party  for 
the  reason  that,  at  the  expiration  in  1893  of  the  term  for  which 
it  was  proposed  to  nominate  him,  Rufus  Blodgett's  successor  in 
the  United  States  Senate  was  to  be  chosen.  To  be  at  the  head 
of  the  State  was  to  command  opportunities  and  dispense  pat- 
ronage that  would  aid  him  to  the  achievement  of  his  ambition 
to  be  that  successor  himself. 

When  the  Democratic  convention  met  in  Trenton,  in  Sej>- 
tember,  1889,  to  name  the  Democratic  candidate  for  Governor, 
his  wag  the  only  came  talked  of  among  the  party  workers. 
There  was  but  one  trifling  interruption  of  the  programme.  Aa 
Anti-Ring  organization  that  had  been  formed  in  Hudson  county 
had  elected  delegates  to  the  State  convention.  Led  by  William 
B.  Rankin,  a  Philadelphia  politician  who  had  been  Governor  of 
Washington  Territory  under  Buchanan  and  finally  settled  down 
in  Jersey  City,  and  by  ex- Speaker  Rudolph  F.  Rabe,  who  broke 
a  privacy  of  many  years  only  to  do  battle  against  the  crime 
that  had  become  rampant  in  the  county,  this  little  handful  of 
zealots  demanded  recognition  at"  the  hands  of  the  convention  as 
the  representatives  of  the  honest  Democrats  of  the  county. 
They  expected  to  be  unceremoniously  barred  out,  and  their  ex- 
pectation was  not  disappointed.  They  retired  in  high  dudgeon^ 
threatening  all  sorts  of  awful  things ;  but  after  the  convention 
had  by  acclamation  put  Abbett  in  renomination  they  gave  him 
their  formal  indorsement. 

The  Republicans  held  their  convention  a  week  later,  for  the 
selection  of  a  candidate  with  whom  to  confront  Abbett.  The 
signs  of  victory  were  not  discouraging,  and  several  ambitious 
lights  of  the  party  were  aspirants  for  the  convention's  favor. 
Frank  A.  Magowan,  who  had  carried  the  Democratic  city  of 
Trenton  as  a  Republican  candidate  for  Mayor,  was  the  most 
aggressive  of  them  all.  John  Kean,  of  Union,  was  another 
who  beamed  smilingly  upon  the  assembled  delegates.  General 
Sewell,  who  was  a  master  hand  in  turning  the  drift  of  the  tide,, 
was  favorable  to  neither.  He  was  inclined  to  humor  the  aspira- 
tions of  General  Edward  Burd  Grubb,  a  Spanish- faced  grandee 
with  Dundreary  side-whiskers,  who  lived  on  a  baronial  estate  in 

21 


322  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

Burlington  county.  Essex  county  had  sounded  the  tocsin  of 
war  upon  General  Sewell's  supremacy,  because  he  had  slighted 
one  of  her  ambitious  sons  (William  R,.  Williams)  to  make  ex- 
Senator  Large,  of  Hunterdon  county,  the  Collector  of  the  fed- 
eral revenue  in  the  north  section  of  the  State ;  and  she  was 
planning  to  spring  ex- Congressman  George  A.  Halsey  upon  the 
convention.  But  General  Sewell  was  at  the  helm  and  he  held 
the  rudder  chain  with  a  firm  hand.  Captain  Kirkbride,  a  Bur- 
lington blacksmith,  won  State- wide  renown  as  an  orator  for  the 
stirring  speech  in  which  he  presented  General  Grubb's  name  to 

the  convention  and  car- 
""  ried  him  triumphantly  to 

the  head  of  the  ticket. 
The  delegates  had  more 
,  -— _  trouble  in    laying  down 

/  •-  ^^P  the  line  of  battle  than  in 

selecting  the  man  who 
was  to  be  in  command. 
The  local  option  question 
was  a  disturbing  factor 
when  the  platform  on 
which  General  Grubb  was 
to  stand  fell  under  con- 
sideration. The  political 
results  of  that  move  had 
not  been  gratifying  to 
John  Y.  Foster.  Republican  hopes.     One 

Legislature  had  been  sac- 
rificed to  it,  and  it  menaced  the  party  with  the  entire  loss  of  its 
prestige.  Especially  did  the  Essex  delegation  fear  the  effect  in 
that  county  of  an  adhesion  to  the  policy  of  that  bill  by  the  party 
of  the  State. 

It  was  reserved  for  two  Essex  men  to  marshal  the  opposing 
forces  when  the  issue  was  before  the  convention  for  settlement. 
John  Y.  Foster  had  been  the  warm  advocate  of  local  option  when 
it  was  first  proposed.  He  was  its  earnest  and  eloquent  champion 
still.     Editor,  publicist  and  churchman,  he  had  stood  for  all 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


323 


that  was  best  and  highest  in  the  aims  and  purpo8e3  of  the  Re- 
publican party.  His  persuasive  oratory  had  made  him  a  force- 
ful factor  in  its  councils ;  and  he  went  to  Trenton  hoping  to 
press  through  the  convention  a  subtly-framed  resolution  indorsing 
the  temperance  legislation  of  1888,  which  he  carried  in  his  pocket. 
Ex- Judge  J.  Frank  Fort  was  something  of  a  churchman,  too, 
out  at  his  home  in  East  Orange,  but  when  he  reached  his  law  office 
in  Newark  he  was  apt  to  take  a  politician's  view  of  things. 
The  active  practice  of  a  successful  lawyer  disposes  one  to  more 
worldly  conceits  than 
he  who  lives  among  the 
books  might  be  expected 
to  indulge.  Judge 
Fort  had  additional  rea- 
sons for  standing  in  op- 
position to  the  attitude 
Mr.  Foster  hoped  to 
induce  the  convention 
to  assume  on  this  par- 
ticular question.  Rich 
brewers,  who  had  no 
tender  sympathies  with 
teetotalism,  were  among 
his  clients.  He  insisted 
that  an  attempt  to  cram 
local  option  down  the 
throat  of  the  party 
would    choke    it — that 

if  it  was  done  Essex  at  any  rate  would  be  hopelessly  beyond 
reach ;  and  he  insisted  that  the  platform,  if  it  did  not  specifically 
disavow  that  particular  tenet,  should  at  least  be  prudently  silent 
concerning  it.  -  The  discussion,  started  in  Essex,  found  echoes 
in  other  counties ;  and  there  was  so  much  protest  on  all  sides 
against  the  policy  of  the  Local  Option  bill  that,  to  emphasize  the 
opposition,  Judge  Fort  was  made  the  permanent  Chairman  of 
the  convention,  f  The  plank  in  the  platform  dealt  with  the  all- 
absorbing  question  after  all  with  so  much  indecision  that,  when 


J.  Frank  Fort. 


324         MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

it  was  read,  the  Essex  delegation  broke  into  a  clamor  of  pro- 
tests, and  Henry  A.  Potter,  their  Chairman,  felt  called  upon  to 
announce  for  his  colleagues  that  Essex  voted  for  its  adoption 
"  only  on  the  understanding  that  it  means  high  license  alone,, 
and  asks  that  this  declaration  of  her  construction  of  it  be  made 
part  of  the  record." 

The  campaign  thus  inaugurated  was  the  second  upon  which 
ex- Senator  Hobart,  as  Chairman  of  the  Republican  State  Com- 
mittee, had  entered  with  high  hope  of  success.  The  manage- 
ment on  the  other  side  was  in  the  hands  of  Allan  L.  McDer- 
mott  as  Chairman  of  the  Democratic  State  Committee.  It  pro- 
gressed with  energy  on  both  sides  and  shifting  prospects  of  suc- 
cess. The  Burlington  General  went  up  to  the  Hackensack 
river  with  an  enormous  vote.  The  result  depended  wholly 
upon  what  Hudson  county  had  done.  And  there  the  returns 
were  gathered  from  the  polling- places  with  irritating  slowness. 
It  was  long  after  the  midnight  that  followed  election  day  when 
enough  had  been  gathered  to  indicate  that  the  county  had  rolled 
up  an  unprecedented  majority  of  nearly  14,000  in  Governor 
Abbett's  favor,  and  that  he  had  been  elected  for  the  second  time 
to  preside  over  the  destinies  of  the  State. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Senator    Gardner    takes    Occasion    here    to    Prove    the    Truth 

that's  in  a  Jest,  and  Mr.  Stuhr  makes  a  Record  as 

the  Briefest  Senator  in  History. 


JWHE  ceremonies  attending  the  inauguration  of  Governor 
|s|  Abbett  drew  as  enormous  a  concourse  of  citizens  to 
^^p  Taylor  Opera  House  in  the  middle  of  January,  1890, 
as  that  which  had  gathered  to  see  him  take  the  oath  of 
office  in  1884.  Clubs  and  delegations  flocked  to  Trenton  from 
all  over,  and  bodies  of  men  even  organized  especially  to  be  of 
•the  inauguration  participants. 

Admission  to  the  platform,  to  the  boxes,  to  the  main  audi- 
torium and  to  the  galleries  was  by  card.  The  multitudes  were 
pouring  in  at  every  opening,  when  just  before  noon  the  music  of 
an  approaching  band  came  from  the  street.  As  it  turned  into 
the  lobby  the  tooting  became  more  and  more  distinct.  Then 
there  succeeded  a  great  clatter  of  feet  on  the  staircases  leading 
aloft.  The  tooters  were  evidently  marshaling  a  visiting  throng 
up  into  the  galleries ;  and  after  a  time  the  head  of  a  bugler 
shot  above  the  landing  in  a  corner  of  the  upper  gallery  into  the 
view  of  those  upon  the  stage.  The  drummer  and  more  buglers 
and  more  drummers  emerged  from  the  darkness.  A  throng  of 
Hudson  county  men,  come  to  jubilate,  were  in  their  wake.  A 
blue  guidon,  with  gilded  figures  blazoned  on  it,  fluttered  in  the 
van  from  a  tall  pole.  The  crowd  circled  around  the  aisles  and 
followed  the  banner  down  the  middle  entree  to  the  front  seats, 
and  planted  it  in  the  very  center  of  the  balcony  in  conspicuous 
view. 

HUDSON   13,515 

was  the  boast  gilded  upon  its  face.     The  figures  were  known  to 
•every  public  man  in  the  State.     The  crowd  recognized  them  at 

(325) 


326 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON. 


a  glance  ag  representing  the  majority  that  had  been  given  to 
Abbett  over  Grubb  by  the  Hudson  county  canvassing  boards. 
That  majority  had  been  a  nine- days'  wonder  all  over  the  State, 
and  the  tradition  was  read  on  every  hand  with  covert  insinua- 
tions while  Governor  Abbett  read  his  Inaugural  Address. 

"The  best  sentiment  of  the  country,"  the  newly- installed 
Governor  began,  with  that  brazen  device  staring  straight  at  him, 
"  demands  ballot  reform  and  honest  elections." 

"  The  highest   aim  of  all  parties  is  good    government,"  he 

concluded,  with  that 
brazen  device  still  star- 
ing straight  at  him,, 
"  and  this  cannot  be 
secured  without  honest 
elections." 

A  furtive  breeze  that 
crept  in  through  the 
open  windows  caught 
up  a  corner  of  the  blue 
guidon  as  he  hurled 
these  caustic  platitudes 
at  it,  and  curled  it  over 
and  over.  The  end 
one  of  the  gilded  fig- 
ures was  hidden  be- 
neath the  silken  folds. 
As  the  breeze  toyed 
with  the  fluttering  silk 
a  second  figure  was 
concealed  from  view.  Then  with  a  grand  sweep  the  wind  gave 
the  fabric  a  final  twist  and  none  but  the  fateful  "  13  "  remained 
visible. 

"See  !  "  exclaimed  the  witty  Senator  Werts  to  the  company  of 
statesmen  who  shared  one  of  the  boxes  with  him,  as  he  pointed 
up  to  it,  "see  how  Abbett's  majority  shrinks  as  he  advocates 
ballot  reform." 

Many  a  truth  is  spoken  in  jest ;  and  subsequent  events  gave: 


William  C  Heppenheimer. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  327 

an  air  of  prophecy  to  this  passing  quip.  The  Legislature  that 
had  assembled  at  the  State  Houee  to  keep  the  new  Governor 
company  was  divided  politically — the  House  was  Democratic, 
with  William  C.  Heppenheimer,  of  Hudson,  for  Speaker;  the 
Senate,  with  General  H.  M.  Nevius,  of  Monmouth,  in  the  chair, 
had  a  working  majority  of  Republicans. 

The  same  poll  that  had  elected  Abbett  had  given  Hudson's 
seat  in  the  Senate  to  Edward  F.  McDonald.  The  contest  at  the 
polls  that  had  resulted  in  his  election  had  been  an  exciting  one. 
The  feeling  in  the  county  that  the  leaders  who  ran  the  conven- 
tions were  not  all  they  should  be  and  that  they  were  leagued 
for  evil,  had  grown  apace.  McDonald  was  panoplied  with  an 
unassailable  reputation  for  probity.  He  was  a  young  man  of 
robust  build,  with  a  robust  conscience,  and  a  robust  voice  that 
made  him  the  idol  of  the  throngs  that  fljcked  to  the  hustings. 
His  erratic  political  course,  which  made  him  now  the  ally  and 
now  the  opponent  of  the  powers  in  control,  reflected  the  sturdy 
independence  of  his  nature.  He  would  be  no  man's  follower. 
It  was  his  prerogative  to  lead,  and  their  efforts  in  the  past  to 
make  him  bend  his  neck  to  the  yoke  had  often  driven  him  into 
open  defiance  of  the  managers  of  his  party's  machine.  He  had 
been  Assemblyman,  Treasurer  of  the  Town  of  Harrison  where 
he  lived,  the  dictator  of  county  affairs  from  his  chair  as  Director- 
at- Large  of  the  Board  of  Freeholders ;  and  then  he  had  refused 
to  bend  the  knee  to  the  bosses  who  assumed  to  control  him,  and 
had  even  been  so  much  at  variance  with  his  party  as  to  have 
served  as  an  Elector  on  the  Butler  Third  Party  ticket  in  the 
Presidential  campaign  of  1884. 

It  was  because  the  Hudson  managers  feared  defeat  if  they  put 
one  of  their  recognized  tools  in  nomination,  that  they  had  been 
driven  to  the  necessity  of  placing  him  on  their  ticket  in  this 
State  Senatorial  contest.  But  even  his  sturdy  independence  and 
admiration  of  his  personal  qualities  could  not  obscure  the  fact 
that  the  ring  the  people  had  learned  to  distrust,  to  fear  in  fact, 
had  put  him  in  the  field.  He  was  met,  therefore,  by  just  such 
a  movement  as  that  which  had  put  Cronao  to  the  front  in  the 


:328 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TREJ^TON. 


campaign  in  which  Robert  Davis  had  made  the  shrievalty  of 
the  county. 

The  good  men  of  the  Democratic  party  could  not  reconcile 
themselves  to  the  idea  of  aiding  the  ring  to  promote  even  him ; 
and  they  looked  to  the  Republicans  to  lead  a  non-partisan  cam- 
paign against  him.  An  independent  Democratic  organization 
was  formed  to  negotiate  with  the  Republicans  for  a  union  of 

clean    hands    in    a 
struggle 


t' 


X.' 


common 

against  the  spoils- 
men again.  They 
went  in  convention 
at  the  same  hour  at 
which  the  Repub- 
licans assembled  to 
select  their  nominee 
for  Senator.  Con- 
ference committees 
were  appointed. 
Views  were  ex- 
changed. Con- 
vinced that  a 
straight  party  nomi- 
nation could  bring 
them  no  victory, 
the  Republicans 
agreed  to  give  their 
indorsement  to  the 
candidate  their 
Democratic  allies 
should  agree  upon.  So  it  was  that  William  S.  Stuhr,  an  inde- 
pendent Democrat,  was  made  the  Fusion  candidate  against  Mr. 
McDonald. 

Stuhr  was  almost  entirely  unknown  in  politics.  His  father 
had  been  a  busy  factor  in  politics  and  public  affairs  for  years  in 
Hoboken.  Young  Stuhr  himself  was  a  young  man  just  enter- 
ing upon  the  practice  of  the  law.     But  it  was  believed  that  the 


William  S.  Stuhr. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         329 

■wide  acquaintance  his  father  enjoyed  among  the  Germans  of 
the  county  would  be  a  valuable  aid  to  him  in  the  coming 
struggle. 

The  canvass  was  a  fierce  and  a  bitter  one.  The  chances  were 
all  against  Stuhr  because,  as  the  reckless  ring- men  were  fond  of 
saying  in  their  own  vernacular  "  We  have  the  boxes,"  and  the 
returns  sent  in  by  them  from  the  election  places  gave  the  Demo- 
<;ratic  ticket  which  they  had  espoused  phenomenal  majorities. 
These  were  surprising  as  well  as  phenomenal,  because  the  drift 
of  public  sentiment  had  indicated  that  if  the  Democratic  candi- 
dates could  succeed  at  all  in  the  county  their  majorities  would 
be  inappreciably  small  ones.  Six  thousand  would  have  been  a 
generous  majority  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances. 
When  at  the  close  of  the  polls  on  this  election  night  of  1889  it 
was  announced  that  Abbett  had  carried  the  county  by  close  on 
to  14,000  majority  and  that  McDonald  had  won  it  by  an  equally 
overwhelming  vote,  the  figures  were  so  incredible  that  the  people 
accepted  them  as  furnishing  the  proofs  in  themselves  of  monu- 
mental frauds  in  the  taking  and  in  the  count  of  the  votes. 

Convinced  that  he  had  been  cheated  by  the  election  officers, 
Stuhr  prepared  to  contest  McDonald's  right  to  the  seat.  On 
the  organization  day  of  the  Senate,  Senator  Roe,  of  Gloucester, 
presented  a  protest  on  Stuhr's  behalf  against  the  admission  of 
.  Mr.  McDonald  to  the  privilege  of  membership ;  but  the  Senate 
permitted  McDonald  to  be  sworn  on  his  credentials,  and  he  was 
^allowed  to  act  pending  the  inquiry  by  the  Senate  Committee  on 
Elections.  President  Nevius  made  Mr.  Roe  one  of  the  mem- 
bers of  that  committee  j  Senator  Gardner,  of  Atlantic,  was  given 
its  Chairmanship,  and  the  showy  Senator  Adrain,  of  Middlesex, 
was  its  Democratic  member. 

The  committee  directed  William  S.  Sharp,  the  painstaking 
Sergeant-at-Arms  of  the  Senate,  to  remove  all  the  boxes,  into 
which  the  voters  of  Hudson  county  had  dropped  their  ballots, 
to  the  State  House  and  began  to  make  an  excursion  through 
them.  Ex- Assemblyman  William  H.  Corbin  represented  the 
<;ommittee  at  the  hearings,  which  extended  over  several  months. 
Ex-Judge  William  T.  HoiFman  assisted  him.     Mr.  McDonald 


330 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


was  represented   by  ex- Judge  A.  Q  Garretson,  a  keen- minded 
lawyer  of  Jersey  City. 

The  first  of  the  boxes  that  was  opened  revealed  the  enormity 
of  the  crime  against  the  suffrage  of  which  the  Democratic  ring 
in  Hudson  had  been  guilty.  The  disclosures  were  startling; 
and  every  box  subsequently  opened  furnished  a  new  sensation. 
Almost  every  ballot  removed  from  the  boxes  bore  the  stamp  not 
merely  of  fraud  but  of  a  conspiracy  as  broad  as  the  county 
itself.    The  milling  and  stamping  were  not  such  as  the  machinery 

of  the  boxes  could  have 
produced.  Poll- books 
did  not  agree  with 
registry- books.  Tally- 
sheets  failed  to  cor- 
roborate the  other  rec- 
ords of  the  boxes. 
The  evidences  of  a 
stupendous  crime  were 
everywhere. 

When  it  had  com- 
pleted its  startling  ex- 
cursion through  the 
ballot-boxes  the  com- 
mittee met  in  Chancery 
Chambers  in  the 
brown-stone  building 
of  the  First  National 
Bank  in  Jersey  City, 
and  prosecuted  equally 
fruitful  explorations  into  the  registry  and  poll-lists.  The  testi- 
mony of  one  witness  revealed  a  passing  glimpse  of  a  coach  that 
made  the  rounds  of  the  election  booths  in  Jersey  City  before 
the  hour  for  the  opening  of  the  polls,  with  a  lot  of  rolls  of 
paper.  The  committee  intimated  its  belief  that  these  rolls  of 
paper  were  lists  of  names  for  the  use  of  the  repeaters  employed 
by  the  ring  and  the  ballot-box  stuffers. 

The  committee  engaged  a  corps  of  detectives,  and,  placing 


John  J.  Gardner. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  331 

them  at  the  service  of  Captain  John  Graham,  a  constable  of 
stalwart  build  and  a  courage  that  knew  no  fear,  directed  him  to 
learn  if  the  men  whose  names  appeared  on  the  registry-lists  as 
of  those  who  intended  to  vote,  and  if  others  whose  names  ap- 
peared on  the  poll-lists  as  of  those  who  had  voted,  really  lived 
at  the  places  of  residence  assigned  to  them  in  the  records.  The 
Captain  was  met  at  every  stage  of  his  inquiry  with  threats  of 
violence  at  the  hands  of  the  hunted  ringsters,  but  he  went  on 
fearlessly  with  his  task.  Every  day  he  sent  to  the  witness  stand 
widows  to  testify  that  their  husbands,  recorded  as  having  voted, 
had  lain  in  their  shrouds  for  years,  and  housekeepers  to  declare 
that  they  had  never  had  the  pleasure  of  the  acquaintance  of 
scores  of  men  recorded  as  sharing  their  homes  with  them. 
Fortunate,  indeed,  was  it  for  the  weak- nerved  men  and  the 
hysterical  women  of  the  county  that  they  knew  nothing  of  a 
ghostly  invasion  of  the  county  indicated  by  the  poll-lists  till  it 
was  all  over  and  the  risen  cadavers  of  a  past  voting  era  had 
slunk  back  in  their  shrouds  to  their  eternal  slumbers  again. 
Scores  of  men  were  recorded  as  having  voted  from  saloons  not 
large  enough  to  have  afforded  them  even  standing-room.  If 
the  record  of  those  lists  had  been  true,  the  canal  boats  must 
have  been  alive  with  eager  suffragists,  and  the  open  lots  scat- 
tered through  the  county  must  have  been  as  populous  as  mass 
meetings.  Of  other  hundreds  whose  names  figured  among  the 
voters,  no  trace,  either  in  the  past  or  present,  could  be  secured. 
Dishonest  election  officers  had  used  the  names  of  these  dead  and 
absent  and  mythical  citizens  to  cover  their  frauds.  As  they  had 
crowded  handfuls  of  bogus  and  fraudulent  ballots  into  the 
boxes,  they  had  written  as  many  false  names  on  the  lists  of  voters 
as  there  were  bogus  and  fraudulent  ballots. 

The  poll-books  in  some  of  the  polling  precincts  represented 
whole  lines  of  citizens  as  having  voted  in  precisely  the  same 
order  in  which,  ten  days  before,  they  had  registered ;  and  in 
others  that  hosts  of  Mr.  A's  and  hosts  of  Mr.  B's  and  hosts  of 
Mr.  C's  had  followed  each  other  t^  the  polls  in  an  alphabetical 
procession  that  could  not  have  been  more  methodical  if  they  had 
stepped  out  of  a  directory. 


332 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


The  palpable  rascalities  that  had  produced  these  freaks  of 
record  were  aided  and  facilitated,  it  was  shown,  by  violence  and 
thuggery  at  the  polling- places.  Voters  by  the  score  told  how 
they  had  been  intimidated  and  driven  away  from  the  booths  by 
bullies  and  roughs.  Scores  of  others  drew  pictures  of  the  vio- 
lence that  made  them  afraid  to  keep  watch  of  the  election  experts 
while  the  count  of  the  vote  was  in  progress.  In  one  of  the 
precincts,  the  vote  had  been  taken  at  an  engine-house  where 
every  employe  was  an  appointee  of  the  ring.  While  a  crowd  of 
on-lookers  wa?  scrutinizing  the  canvass  of  the  ballots  in  the  gang- 
way, the  electric  gong 
was  struck.  Loosened 
from  their  stalls,  the 
f  ?)H  horses    scampered 

through  the  throng  to 
their  places  before  the 
engine,  and  the  crowd 
scattered  in  every  di- 
rection to  avoid  being 
trampled  under  their 
lioofs.  The  election 
I  officers  made  the  excite- 
1  ment  a  pretext  for  car- 
rying the  box  to  a  room 
overhead,  and  when 
the  watchers  recovered 
their  breath  and  tried 
to  follow  them,  a  dozen 
ring  policemen  fought  them  down  the  staircase  again  with  their 
clubs.  The  box,  on  being  opened  in  the  Gardner  investigation, 
was  found  to  be  reeking  with  the  evidences  of  the  rascality  the 
incident  had  been  planned  to  cover. 

It  took  the  committee  several  weeks  to  complete  the  startling 
disclosures.  The  Senate  and  House  took  a  recess  to  await  its 
finding.  Senators  Gardner  and  Rue  joined  in  a  report  declaring 
that  1,764  irregular  tissue  ballots  had  been  discovered  in  the 
several  boxes ;  that  false  voting  lists  had  been  employed  ;  that 


Edward  F.  McDonald. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  333 

the  polls  had  been  surrounded  by  ruffians  to  intimidate  honest 
voters,  sixteen  ring  policemen  being  engaged  at  one  polling- 
place  to  prevent  the  seating  of  a  Republican  election  clerk  ;  that 
the  most  startling  of  frauds  had  been  committed  with  the  most 
audacious  insolence ;  that  repeaters  had  overrun  the  city.  And 
they  computed  that  the  vote  of  the  county  had  been  swollen  by 
the  use  of  10,000  or  more  fraudulent  ballots. 

The  honest  vote  of  the  county  had  been  so  clouded  and  viti- 
ated by  these  reckless  villainies  of  the  crowd  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  reach  a  conclusion  as  to  what  the  verdict  of  the  people 
had  been,  and  the  conservative  expectation  was  that  the  commit- 
tee would  declare  that  there  had  been  no  election  in  the  county. 
The  majority  report  figured,  however,  that  the  frauds  were  all 
against  Stuhr,  and  that  they  were  sufficient  to  have  defeated  his 
election.  They  declared,  therefore,  that  Mr.  McDonald  was  not 
a  qualified  member  of  the  Senate,  and  awarded  the  seat  from 
Hudson  to  his  opponent ;  and  on  the  last  day  of  the  session 
Stuhr  was  admitted  to  the  chair,  notwithstanding  the  luminous 
argument  Senator  Adrain,  the  third  member  of  the  committee, 
made  in  Mr.  McDonald's  behalf  under  cover  of  a  minority 
report. 

The  Democrats  came  into  control  of  the  Senate  the  following 
year  (1891).  The  first  matter  that  engaged  its  attention  was  the 
ousting  of  Stuhr  and  the  re-seating  of  Mr.  McDonald.  Senator 
Werts,  of  Morris,  on  the  opening  day  offered  a  resolution  recit- 
ing that  the  admission  of  Stuhr  to  the  seat  "  was  without  testi- 
mony to  authorize  or  justify  it,"  and  declaring  for  a  reconsider- 
ation of  the  action  of  the  Senate  of  1890.  When  Senator  Stuhr 
raised  the  point  of  order  that  a  motion  to  reconsider  was  not 
parliamentarily  possible  after  the  expiration  of  twenty- four 
hours.  Senator  Adrain,  who  was  in  the  chair,  overruled  it.  Mr. 
Stuhr  argued  then  that  his  case  was  res  ar^judicata,  and  that  the 
Senate  could  not  traverse  the  issue  again.  Senator  Werts  re- 
torted that  such  a  thing  as  res  adjudicata  was  unknown  to 
parliamentary  law,  and,  on  the  assumption  that  the  Senate  is  not 
a  continuous  body,  he  declared  that  the  Senate  of  1891  had  the 
same  right  to  judge  of  the  election,  qualifications  and  return  of 


334  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

its  members  as  the  Senate  of  1890  had.  Senator  Gardner  epi- 
grammatically  responded  that  the  decision  in  Stuhr's  favor  in 
1890  had  not  been  a  parliamentary  proceeding — it  was  a  judicial 
determination  that  the  Senate  of  1891  had  no  power  to  interfere 
with ;  and  Mr.  Stuhr  closed  the  discussion  with  an  elaborate 
legal  argument  in  support  of  his  contention  that,  seated  once 
after  a  contest,  he  was  entitled  to  serve  to  the  end  of  the  term. 
The  arguments  all  went  for  nothing,  however.  Senator  Werts's 
resolution  prevailed  by  a  vote  of  13  to  7,  and  Mr.  McDonald 
took  his  seat  in  the  Senate  again,  while  friends  and  partisans 
who  crowded  the  Senate  floor  broke  into  plaudits. 

Seated  on  the  last  day  of  the  session  of  1890  and  unhorsed  on 
the  first  day  of  the  session  of  1891,  Mr.  Stuhr  had  practically 
been  a  Senator  for  a  single  day ;  and  he  enjoys  the  distinction  of 
having  served  for  the  shortest  senatorial  term  in  all  the  annals 
of  legislation. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII. 

This  Chapter  Narrates  the  Story  of  the  Embarrassments  that 
Surrounded  the  Indictment,  the  Prosecution  and  the  Impris- 
onment OF  THE  Hudson  County  Ballot-Box  Stuffers. 


|WflE  exposures  made  by  the  Gardner  committee  created 
the  most  intense  excitement  all  through  the  State,  and 
a  demand  went  up  everywhere  for  the  indictment  of 
the  men  who  had  been  guilty  of  the  fraud.  That, 
however,  was  a  thing  easier  to  talk  about  than  to  accomplish. 
It  was  common  report  that  in  drawing  the  grand  jury  that 
served  at  the  succeeding  term  of  the  court,  Sheriff  Davis  had 
not^lost  sight  of  the  possibility  of  an  effort  to  indict  the  election 
officers,  and  that  he  had  interposed  a  body  of  inquisitors  who 
would  stand  between  them  and  the  courts.  It  was  impossible 
for  the  Judges  to  arraign  the  men  until  they  had  been  presented 
by  the  grand  jury,  and  a  scanning  of  the  grand  jury  list  re- 
vealed the  presence  upon  it  of  a  ring  majority.* 

In  the  hope  of  keeping  the  body  in  countenance  with  the 
people  and  of  shielding  it  from  the  criticisms  its  expected  inac- 
tion would  be  certain  to  provoke,  the  Sheriff  had  taken  pains 
to  throw  into  it  a  sprinkling  of  citizens  who  enjoyed  the 
public  confidence.  One  of  these  trusted  citizens.  Dr.  Leonard 
J.  Gordon,  was  even  named  as  the  foreman.  Dr.  Gordon  was 
recognized  as  one  of  the  public-spirited  men  of  the  town.  While 
never  seeking  office  for  himself,  he  was  foremost  in  all  public 

*The  full  list  of  this  memorable  grand  jury  is  as  follows:  Leonard  J. 
Ctordon,  Foreman ;  John  Kamsay,  James  Tumilty,  Henry  Allers,  Frederick 
Goddard,  John  Wade,  Michael  Smith,  Lawrence  Fagan,  Paul  Troust,  Walter 
C.  Wescott,  Otto  Lawrence,  Charles  Marks,  Henry  Otterson,  Garret  Felter, 
Owen  McGuire,  Frederic  Gassert,  William  Letts,  Otto  Tepper,  Benjamin 
Edge,  John  Cavanagh,  Patrick  J.  Condon,  George  H.  Bowler,  John  H. 
Schieffelin,  Jr. 

(335) 


336  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

movements  set  on  foot  for  the  general  welfare.  The  inadvisable 
things  brought  him  to  the  front  to  protest ;  he  was  equally  the 
consistent  advocate  of  every  progressive  idea  that  was  broached. 
Over  six  feet  high,  slim  and  wiry,  and  a  man  of  tremendous 
energy,  he  found  time  for  business,  politics  and  society,  and  was 
a  figure  in  every  direction.  Dr.  Benjamin  Edge,  a  smiling, 
pleasant- faced,  black- eyed  gentleman  of  wealth  and  leisure,  was 
another  whose  name  was  expected  to  redeem  the  whole  list. 
But  they  were  only  two  of  twenty-four,  and  notwithstanding 
their  over- shadowing  prominence  in  the  body  their  votes  could 
be  easily  over-balancad,  when  the  question  of  the  crimes  of  the 
election  officers  should  come  up,  by  the  larger  number  of  votes 
the  ring  had  reserved  for  itself  in  the  body.  There  was  some 
doubt  indeed  whether,  by  consenting  to  serve,  the  two  would 
consent  to  risk  incurring  the  odium  of  being  part  of  a  public 
body  that  might  refuse  to  discharge  a  duty  the  community  ex- 
pected of  it. 

When  the  grand  jurors  marched  into  court  at  the  opening  of 
the  September  Term  of  court,  in  1890,  Judge  Manning  M. 
Knapp  made  the  ballot-box  crimes  the  theme  of  his  charge.  He 
directed  them  to  make  the  fullest  possible  inquiry,  not  only  as 
to  the  men  who  had  actually  perpetrated  the  frauds,  but  as  to 
those  also  who  had  inspired  them.  It  was  plain  that  they  had 
been  carefully  planned,  and  that  the  men  who  served  in  the 
election  booths  had  but  carried  out  the  orders  of  some  higher 
than  themselves  in  the  party's  councils. 

The  struggle  between  the  minority  bent  on  finding  indict- 
ments, and  the  majority  that  stood  stolidly  against  it,  began  the 
moment  the  grand  jury  withdrew  to  the  privacy  of  their  secret 
chamber.  Charles  H.  Winfield,  the  lion-maned  Prosecutor  of 
the  county,  devoted  his  nights  and  days  to  the  preparation  of 
the  evidence  for  their  consideration.  The  strained  public  tem- 
per was  impatient  of  delay,  and  Drs.  Gordon  and  Edge  seized 
every  opportunity  to  urge  upon  their  colleagues  the  necessity  for 
action.  The  newspapers  echoed  the  demand.  Neighbor  and 
associate,  friend  and  foe,  alike  urged  that  something  be  done. 
But  the  grand  inquisitors  set  their  faces  against  it  with  a  griE* 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.         337 

determination.  The  bombardment  was  kept  up  on  all  sides,  till 
it  became  evident  even  to  their  dulled  sensibilities  that  some 
kind  of  a  sop  would  have  to  be  thrown  to  the  whale  of  public 
opinion.  Lawyers  were  called  in  to  find  a  loophole  of  relief. 
They  were  asked  if  they  could  not  devise  presentments  that 
would  break  under  the  test  of  a  judicial  strain.  One  among  them 
finally  struck  a  happy  idea,  and  advised  them  that  indictments 
alleging  conspiracy,  in  indicated  technical  phrases,  would  meet 
the  emergency.  The  mere  presentment  of  the  bills  wo»ld  still 
public  clamor ;  the  technical  weakness  of  their  form  would,  at 
the  same  time,  make  conviction  and  punishment  impossible. 
The  majority  hesitated  even  to  risk  this  subterfuge. 

Foreman  Gordon  suspected  that  they  might  be  more  willing 
to  aid  him  if  their  vote  could  be  a  secret  one.  The  usual  mode 
was  to  vote  indictments  by  the  aye  and  nay  responses  on  a  roll- 
call  ;  and  the  tally- list  was  a  record  that  showed  the  part  of 
each  man  in  shaping  the  result. 

Dr.  Gordon  decided  to  try  the  experiment  of  changing  the 
method.  He  watched  for  an  opportunity  to  throw  the  old 
method  aside.  A  trifling  case  that  came  up  for  consideration 
brought  him  the  opportunity.  It  had  no  relation  to  the  elec- 
tion cases;  but  the  grand  jurors  knew  the  parties  interested  in 
it,  and  some  who  were  ready  to  vote  an  indictment  did  not  want 
the  indicted  men  to  know  that  they  had  voted  against  them. 
Foreman  Gordon  suggested  that  if  a  secret  vote  were  taken  on 
the  question  of  indicting,  their  attitude  upon  the  matter  could 
never  be  known.  His  blind  colleagues  fell  into  the  trap.  They 
regarded  the  expedient  as  a  mere  cover  for  that  unimportant  case. 
The  foreman  surprised  them  afterwards  by  declaring  that  it  set  the 
precedent  for  the  procedure  on  all  the  cases  presented  for  action. 
Presently  Dr.  Edge  moved  the  consideration  of  the  election 
cases.  A  clamor  went  up  at  once  for  a  return  to  the  usual  sys- 
tem of  viva  voce  voting.  The  foreman  refused  to  listen  to  it ; 
and,  confident  of  their  superiority  in  numbers,  the  champions  of 
the  election  boards  prepared  their  secret  ballots.  General  John 
Ramsay  gathered  the  bits  of  paper  up  in  a  hat.  The  ring  con- 
tingent became  alarmed  as  "  aye  "  after  "  aye  "  was  told  off  by 

22 


338  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  THENTON. 

the  counters.  They  were  white  with  rage  and  fear  when  the 
completed  count  showed  that  the  secret  ballot  had  resulted  in  an 
indictment.  The  determined  fraud- pursuers  were  satisfied  with 
their  triumph  for  the  day,  and  action  on  other  cases  was  de- 
ferred until  the  next  morning. 

Frequent  councils  held  by  the  frightened  ring  leaders  in  the 
meanwhile,  resulted  in  an  attempt  at  the  next  meeting  to  recon- 
sider the  action  ordering  the  bill  thus  incautiously  voted. 
Favored  by  the  secret  ballot  the  reconsideration  failed  and  then 
the  ring  managers  determined  upon  a  bold  stroke.  It  was 
nothing  less  than  the  indictment  of  all  the  suspected  men.  The 
throng  thus  put  in  peril  would  swoop  down  on  the  grand  jurors 
with  a  pressure  for  reconsideration  that  could  not  be  resisted. 
The  plan  was  carried  out,  and  the  four  members  of  each  of 
seventeen  election  boards  were  put  under  indictment.  One  of 
the  sixty-eight  had  died  since  the  election,  and  sixty-seven  men 
were  put  in  jeopardy  by  the  seventeen  bills.  Howls  of  fear 
went  up  from  the  sixty- seven  throats.  The  grand  jurors  were 
besieged  and  buttonholed  and  coaxed,  cajoled  and  threatened  till 
life  was  made  a  nuisance.  Then  when  they  had  been  tortured  and 
goaded  into  complaisance,  the  motion  to  reconsider  was  sprung. 

Foreman  Gordon  had  been  watching  the  side  play.  He  had 
prepared  himself  for  the  emergency.  When  the  motion  was 
oiFered,  he  threw  the  crowd  into  confusion  by  refusing  to  enter- 
tain it.  Such  a  motion  could  be  made  according  to  Gushing 
only  by  one  who  had  voted  with  the  prevailing  party.  The 
action  on  these  cases  had  been  taken  by  ballot ;  there  had  been 
no  roll-call.  It  was  impossible  to  say  who  had  voted  for  and 
who  against  the  bills.  There  was  no  record  to  show  that  the  man 
who  moved  the  reconsideration  was  in  parliamentary  position  to 
ask  for  it.  The  motion  was  declared  out  of  order.  A  dozen 
men  sprang  to  their  feet  shouting  for  an  appeal  from  the  decision 
of  the  chair.  The  foreman  refused  to  entertain  the  appeal. 
Ring  adherents  jumped  over  their  desks,  and  gathered  around 
him  in  excited  throngs.  One  bully  among  them  invited  him 
to  step  down  from  his  platform  so  that,  as  he  elegantly  expressed 
it,  he  might  "  wipe  the  Hoor  with  him."     Dr.  Edge,  Gen.  Ram- 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         339 

-say  and  the  constables  went  to  Gordon's  aid  and  kept  the  baffled 
throng  at  bay  till  quiet  had  been  restored  and  the  attempt  to 
reconsider  had  been  abandoned. 

There  was  yet  another  critical  stage  to  be  passed  before  the 
bills  could  be  taken  into  court.  They  could  not  be  presented  to 
the  Judges  until  the  foreman  had  been  ordered  to  sign  them. 
The  ring  adherents  prepared  themselves  to  vote  "  no "  on  the 
•question  whether  they  should  be  perfected  by  the  foreman's 
signature.  Dr.  Gordon  had  anticipated  this  obstruction,  and 
he  had  fortified  himself  with  the  advice  of  a  Supreme  Court 
Judge,  to  the  effect  that  the  specific  order  of  the  grand  jury  was 
not  necessary  to  authorize  the  signature,  and  he  circumvented 
them  by  signing  without  waiting  for  their  order. 

Thus  baffled  at  every  point,  the  chagrined  men  prepared  to 
defeat  the  delivery  of  the  true  bills  to  the  court  by  combining 
to  stay  out  of  the  court-room.  The  form  requires  the  presence 
of  a  majority  of  the  grand  jury  before  the  Judges  when  bills  are 
handed  up,  and  it  was  impossible  for  the  few  anti-ring  men  in 
the  grand  jury  to  make  the  presentments  without  the  presence 
of  the  others.  When  the  bills  had  all  been  prepared  and  the 
foreman  and  his  colleagues  were  ready  to  go  into  court.  Dr. 
Edge  moved  that  the  body  proceed  to  the  court- room  with  the 
bills.  A  chorus  of  negative  responses  greeted  the  motion.  The 
foreman  declared  that  he  proposed  to  go  anyhow,  and  placed  the 
big  bundle  of  bills,  tied  around  with  red  tape,  on  the  long  green 
table  around  which  the  grand  jury  gathered,  while  he  threw  his 
overcoat  over  his  shoulders.  One  of  the  ring  men  made  a  dart 
for  the  bills  with  the  evident  purpose  of  destroying  them,  but 
the  foreman  was  too  quick  for  him  and  seized  them  before  he 
could  reach  them.  Then,  making  a  dash  for  the  door,  he 
directed  the  grand  jurors  to  form  in  line  behind  him.  Less  than 
half  a  dozen  obeyed,  and  he  turned  back  and  with  his  loftiest 
air  commanded  the  rest  to  join  the  procession.  When  they 
still  held  back,  he  directed  the  clerk  to  prepare  a  petition  to  the 
court  asking  for  bench  warrants  for  their  arrest.  They  yielded 
to  the  bluff  and  followed  the  foreman  into  the  court-room 
and  the  indictments  were  finally  placed  in  the  Judge's  hands. 


340 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


Dr.  Gordon  was  not  satisfied  even  with  the  triumph  he  thus 
achieved,  and  when  he  handed  the  indictments  up  to  the  court, 
he  accompanied  them  with  an  explanation,  signed  by  himself,. 
Dr.  Edge,  Gen.  Eamsay  and  John  H.  Schieffelin,  Jr.,  that  the 
opposition  their  good  work  had  encountered  in  the  grand  jury 
room  had  made  it  impossible  for  him  and  them  to  do  more  in 
the  interest  of  justice. 

The  accused  men  were  arrested  at  once,  and  Prosecutor  Win- 
field  made  prepara- 
tions for  their  im- 
mediate trial.  Each 
indictment  charged 
the  four  men  who 
made  up  an  election 
board,  and  Win- 
field's  prophecy  that 
he  would  start 
the  whole  crew  of 
rascals  to  State 
Prison  in  files  of 
four  became  famous. 
He  bad  an  enormous 
pile  of  testimony  to 
digest  and  arrange,^ 
no  end  of  records  to 
examine,  clues  to 
follow  up,  and  wit- 
nesses to  chase  out 
from  their  hiding- 
places.  Captain 
John  Graham,  who  had  rendered  such  valuable  service  to  the 
Gardner  Investigating  Committee,  was  the  only  man  whom  he 
could  trust  as  his  assistant  in  the  performance  of  this  difficult 
and  onerous  task,  and  the  two  frequently  worked  all  night  in 
the  preparation  of  the  cases  that  were  weekly  called  to  trial. 
All  through  the  records  he  struck  evidence  that  the  frauds  had 
been  carefully  planned  beforehand  by  a  directing  head,  and  that 


Charl 


Win  field. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  341 

they  had  been  perpetrated  at  most  of  the  one  hundred  and 
«ixty-three  polling-places  in  Jersey  City.  Hints  as  to  who  was 
the  head  and  front  of  the  conspiracy  were  numerous,  but  the 
most  searching  inquiry  failed  to  bring  any  convincing  proofs  of 
their  justice. 

The  fraudulent  ballots  found  in  the  boxes  had  been  printed 
on  a  thin  tissue-paper  unlike  that  which  had  been  used  for  the 
^-egular  ballots,  and  were  so  marked  that  they  could  be  easily 
detected ;  but  beyond  some  testimony  that  they  were  taken  from 
the  Democratic  County  Committee's  rooms  by  the  poll-workers 
on  the  night  before  election,  no  trace  of  the  manner  in  which 
they  had  got  into  general  circulation  could  be  secured.  The 
marks  found  upon  the  fraudulent  ballots  were  in  all  cases  dif- 
ferent from  those  made  by  the  automatic  registering  machinery 
of  the  box  in  which  they  were  discovered ;  the  circular 
print  made  by  it  became  an  ellipse,  and  the  needle  puncture 
that  should  have  been  in  the  circle  was  frequently  outside  of  it. 
The  marks  on  all  the  regular  ballots  were  precisely  the  same. 
Prosecutor  Winfield  concluded  that  the  thousands  of  fraudulent 
ballots,  run  through  a  box  somewhere  secretly,  had  been 
punched,  in  bundles,  with  an  awl.  Only  one  of  the  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  ballot-boxes  in  use  in  the  county  on  that  fateful 
election  day  could  have  made  the  imprint  found  upon  the  joker 
ballots,  and  it  was  noted  as  something  of  an  incident  that  the 
machinery  of  that  box  refused  to  work  when  it  was  taken  into 
service  at  the  polling- place.  Not  the  slightest  evidence  could 
be  produced  as  to  the  place  where  or  the  person  by  whom  they 
had  been  prepared  for  the  use  of  the  conspirators,  and  it  is  an 
open  question  even  yet  how  they  were  got  into  the  boxes  at  all 
without  showing  the  marks  of  the  boxes.  Prosecutor  Winfield 
imbibed  the  impression  from  what  he  learned  of  the  circum- 
stances surrounding  the  crime  at  the  trials  that  the  head  of  the 
boxes  must  have  been  taken  oflP,  and  these  "joker  ballots,"  as 
they  were  called,  thrust  in  by  the  handful. 

It  came  to  Mr.  Winfield,  through  Joseph  Locke,  a  constable 
on  Jersey  City  Heights,  that  a  woman  living  with  "  Tom " 
Trotter,  a  characterless  election  sharp,  as  a  housekeeper,  had 


342  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

seen  him  run  the  ballots  through  the  mill  of  a  box-head,  and  he 
had  reason  to  believe,  at  the  time  the  election  board  with  which 
Trotter  was  connected  was  about  to  be  called  to  trial,  that  she 
still  had  that  box-head  in  her  possession.  He  started  his  con- 
stables out  to  follow  up  that  clue.  They  traced  the  woman  to 
the  Roosevelt  Hospital,  in  New  York.  When  they  inquired 
for  her  at  the  door  they  were  told  that  she  could  not  be  seen  in 
less  than  half  an  hour.  They  went  to  a  neighboring  dining- 
saloon  to  spend  the  time  they  were  forced  to  wait,  and  as  they 
entered,  they  surprised  Sheriif  Davis  and  one  or  two  others  who 
were  known  to  be  in  sympathy  with  the  ring,  talking  to  each 
other  in  subdued  whispers  at  one  of  the  tables.  One  of  the 
party  passed  a  roll  of  money  to  another;  and  that  other  hastened 
out  of  the  place.  When  the  Prosecutor's  detectives  returned  to 
the  hcspital  they  were  allowed  to  see  the  woman,  but  she  assured 
them  that  she  knew  nothing  that  could  throw  any  light  upon 
the  conspiracy.  An  hour  afterwards  she  was  out  of  the  place. 
The  Prosecutor's  officers  returned  to  his  desk  with  the  impres- 
sion that  the  woman's  ignorance  about  the  matter  was  due  some- 
how or  other  to  the  presence  of  Sheriff  Davis  and  his  asso- 
ciates in  that  neighborhood  at  the  time  the  officers  were  seeking- 
her,  and  that  they  had  gone  there  to  persuade  her  to  flight  before 
the  minions  of  the  law  could  rtach  her. 

She  subsequently  returned  to  "  Tom  "  Trotter's  household  on 
Pavonia  avenue,  in  Jersey  City.  Convinced  that  she  knew 
more  about  the  matter  than  she  had  said  and  that  the  fear  of 
prosecution  for  perjury  would  force  her  to  make  divulgences. 
Prosecutor  Winfield  sent  a  second  capias  after  her  the  day  before 
one  of  the  election  boards  was  to  be  tried,  but  somebody  had 
given  her  the  cue,  and  when  his  officers  reached  the  house  they 
learned  that  she  had  fled  an  hour  before. 

When  Prosecutor  Winfield  had  prepared  the  cases  for  trial, 
he  proceeded  to  redeeem  his  promise  to  start  a  file  of  four 
towards  Trenton  each  week  till  they  had  all  been  imprisoned, 
and  brought  the  first  accused  of  the  election  boards  to  the  bar 
of  Judge  Lippincott's  court.  The  scene  in  the  court- room  as 
the  trials   progressed  was  a  memorable  one.     Throngs  of  the 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         343 

unwashed  flocked  to  the  benches  outside  the  bar- rail.  Troops 
of  distinguished  citizens  who  had  never  seen  the  inside  of  a 
court-room  before,  filled  the  chairs  within  the  rail.  On  one 
side  of  the  green  table,  in  front  of  the  jury  box,  the  four 
defendants  sat,  with  their  counsel.  Some  notable  lawyers  were 
among  those  who  had  rushed  to  court  to  defend  them.  Ex- 
Judge  Abram  Q.  Garretson,  keen- faced  and  accounted  one  of 
the  most  skillful  cross- examiners  at  the  bar,  was  the  only  one 
of  them  under  retainer.  The  dark-visaged  Hudspeth,  who  had 
been  Speaker  of  the  Assembly;  the  self-important  William  D. 
Daly,  who  had  served  a  term  or  more  in  the  same  Chamber ; 
Charles  C.  Black,  whom  Governor  Abbett  had  put  at  the  head 
of  the  State  Board  of  Taxation,  and  Norman  L.  Rowe,  counsel 
of  the  ring  Board  of  Freeholders,  were  by  his  side  as  volunteer 
assistants.  And  amid  them  all  sat  the  Sheriff,  bald-headed  and 
under-sized,  who  had  been  the  recognized  Boss  of  the  party  at 
the  time  the  crimes  were  committed,  cheering  and  comforting 
the  prisoners,  prompting  and  advising  the  lawyers.  Prosecutor 
Winfield,  with  tongue  to  move  to  laughter  or  melt  to  tears 
with  his  changing  moods,  a  man  of  playful  fancy,  rich  in  quota- 
tion, terrible  in  invective,  and  of  vehement  eloquence,  stood 
alone.  A  glance  at  his  massive  frame,  at  the  strong  lines  of  his 
face  with  its  overhanging  mane  of  abundant  yellow  hair, 
showed  that  he  was  a  lion  among  them. 

And  on  the  bench  presiding  with  firmness  and  dignity  was  the 
cherub- faced  Job  H.  Lippincott,  with  cheeks  full  and  ruddy,  and 
big  wide-awake  blue  eyes — a  picture  of  health  and  conscience 
and  of  the  good  nature  that  prime  health  and  a  clear  conscience 
always  beget,  but  a  man  of  iron  will  withal.  He  had  lay  asso- 
ciates on  the  bench — the  Celtic- faced  Kenny  and  the  self  conscious 
Albert  Hoffman  ;  but,  after  all,  he  was  the  central  figure  in  the 
personnel  of  the  whole  assemblage.  For  upon  his  treatment  of 
the  issues  to  be  raised  in  the  hearings  depended  the  results  of 
the  trials.  He  could  balk  the  prosecution  at  every  step,  if  he 
were  so  inclined,  by  ruling  out  the  offers  of  the  State  and 
admitting  the  offers  of  the  defense ;  and  by  his  charge  at  the 
close   he   could   sway   the  jury  to   convict   or   acquit,  as    his 


344  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

humor  moved  him.  The  friends  of  the  accused  had  not  lost 
sight  of  his  overshadowing  importance  in  the  conduct  of  the 
cases.  They  had  resorted  to  all  the  tricks  of  the  politician  to 
bring  him  to  a  complaisant  view  of  their  offenses. 

Ex- Judge  Garretson  made  the  case  bristle  with  technical 
points  as  the  first  of  the  trials  went  on.  His  first  stand  was 
taken  on  the  question  of  the  right  of  the  defendants  to  challenge 
the  candidates  for  the  jury-box.  Mr.  Winfield  had  been  unwill- 
ing to  risk  the  convictions  to  the  term  panel  of  petty  jurors 
selected  by  Sheriff  Divis  and  had  brought  the  defendants  into 
court  for  trial  before  special  panels  of  forty- eight  men,  repre- 
senting the  choice  citizens  of  the  county  and  selected  under  the 
supervision  of  the  court.  After  the  forty-eight  are  selected  in 
proceedings  of  this  kind,  it  becomes  the  privilege  of  each  side 
interested  in  the  trial  to  strike  off  alternately  a  name  until  but 
twenty- four  remain.  From  this  twenty-four  on  trial  day,  the 
twelve  who  are  to  determine  the  issue  are  selected.  Judge 
Garretson  raised  the  point  when  he  went  to  the  defense  of  the 
first  of  the  indicted  boards  that  each  of  the  four  defendants  was 
entitled  to  the  common-law  right  of  challenging  three  jurors  of 
the  panel.  If  that  privilege  had  been  allowed,  twelve  of  the 
twenty-four  would  have  disappeared  from  the  special  panel  on 
peremptory  challenges,  and  when  the  State  had  interposed  its 
three  challenges,  there  would  not  have  been  enough  left  to  have 
filled  the  jury-box.  Mr.  Winfield  met  Mr.  Garretson's  argu- 
ment with  the  novel  point  that  the  defendants  had  exhausted 
their  challenge  rights  in  striking  out,  alternately  with  the  State, 
the  twenty-four  names  from  the  original  list  of  forty-eight,  and 
that  they  had  no  right  whatever  to  challenge  in  court.  Even  if 
the  right  to  any  challenges  were  allowed,  the  four  defendants 
stood  before  the  court  as  one,  he  contended,  and  the  group  was 
entitled  to  but  the  three  challenges  to  which  a  defendant  was 
entitled  in  ordinary  trials.  Judge  Lippincott  promptly  over- 
ruled Mr.  Garretson's  motion  and,  sustaining  the  Prosecutor, 
ordered  the  trial  to  go  on. 

The  case  had  not  progressed  far  before  Mr.  Garretson  raised 
the  objection  to  the  indictments  upon  which  the  friends  of  the 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  .345 

accused  had  from  the  first  counted  for  their  acquittal.  The 
peculiar  character  of  the  crimes  had  made  it  necessary  to  depart 
somewhat  from  the  usual  form  in  drawing  the  bills.  It  was  a 
recognized  crime  for  a  body  of  men  to  conspire  to  do  something 
to  obstruct  the  law.  These  men  were  accused  of  having  con- 
spired to  do  something  by  obstructing  the  law.  In  one  case 
the  obstruction  of  the  law  is  an  end ;  in  the  other  it  is  a  means 
to  an  end ;  and  Judge  Garretson  argued  that  an  indictment 
which  charged  it  as  an  incident  would  not  lie  under  the  form 
which  required  it  to  be  charged  as  an  end.  The  point  was  an 
exceptionally  fine  one,  and  for  some  time  Mr.  Winfield  was 
puzzled  to  find  an  answer  to  it.  When  he  sought  Attorney- 
■General  Stockton  for  light,  that  eminent  lawyer  and  statesman 
was  inclined  to  believe  that  the  point  had  been  well  taken 
against  him.  Assistant  Prosecutor  Joseph  M.  Noonan  called 
all  the  subtleties  and  sophisms  of  his  metaphysical  mind  into 
play  to  convince  his  chief  that  Mr.  Garretson  and  the  Attorney- 
•General  knew  what  they  were  talking  about.  Winfield  refused, 
however,  to  be  convinced,  and  he  searched  the  books  tirelessly 
till  he  found  a  case  which  exactly  fitted  his  own.  Marching 
into  court  triumphantly  the  next  morning  with  his  sheepskins 
•under  his  arm,  be  drove  a  peg  into  the  State's  case  for  Judge 
Ijippincott  to  haog  a  favorable  decision  upon,  and  the  court 
sustained  the  indictment  and  for  the  second  time  ordered  the 
'trial  to  proceed. 

Lawyer  Garretson  played  his  last  card  when  he  made  an  argu- 
ment, based  on  the  State's  theory  that  the  "joker  ballots"  had 
been  printed  and  punctured  before  they  had  been  placed  in  the 
ballot- boxes.  He  insisted  that  the  ballot-boxes  were  so  con- 
structed as  to  make  it  impossible  to  pass  a  bit  of  paper  into  them 
without  having  it  marked  by  the  registering  machine  at  the  slot. 
After  dinner,  the  day  this  point  was  raised,  Mr.  Winfield  strode 
into  court  with  one  of  the  big  glass  boxes  under  his  arm  and 
placed  it  on  the  desk  in  view  of  the  jury.  He  ran  a  number  of 
ballots  through  it  to  convince  the  jury,  by  the  marks  it  made 
upon  them,  that  its  printing  machinery  was  in  perfect  working 
order. 


Job  H.  Lippincott. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  347 

"And  now,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,"  he  said,  with  an  air  of 
triumph,  "let  me  show  you  how  easily  one  of  these  'joker 
ballots '  can  be  put  through  this  slot  without  showing  a  single 
other  mark  than  that  which  is  upon  it  now." 

He  thrust  a  needle  into  the  slot  and  held  its  printing  appa- 
ratus motionless  while  he  ran  a  dozen  of  the  ballots  through 
into  the  box.  Each  ballot,  as  it  passed  through,  was  numbered 
and  registered  on  the  indicator  in  tbe  lid,  but  not  one  of  them 
received  a  new  mark.  Ex-Judge  Garretson  practically  threw 
up  his  hands  after  that  demonstration,  and  before  night  the  first 
batch  of  ballot-box  stuffers  had  been  convicted. 

There  was  a  delay  of  several  months  before  the  arraignment  of 
the  next  board.  The  board  first  convicted  appealed  from  Judge 
Lippincott's  rulings  on  the  challenge  question  and  on  the  indict- 
ment question,  and,  as  they  were  both  new,  Court  and  Prosecutor 
alike  agreed  that  it  would  be  wise  to  wait  for  the  finding  of  the 
higher  courts  on  them  before  going  on  with  the  other  trials.  A 
few  months  later  the  Supreme  Court  sustained  Judge  Lippincott 
on  every  ruling  which  he  had  made  and  afiBrmed  the  conviction. 
Prosecutor  Winfield  now  began  to  marshal  the  election  boards 
into  court  again,  and  kept  them  moving  in  a  steady  procession 
as  fast  as  he  could  convict  them. 

Of  the  sixty- seven  indicted,  but  one  escaped  conviction,  and 
the  acquittal  of  that  man,  the  characterless  son  of  a  shoe-maker 
who  had  something  of  a  "  pull "  among  the  Republican  primary 
workers  in  the  lower  part  of  Jersey  City,  was  regarded  by  Court 
and  Prosecutor  as  a  shameful  miscarriage  of  justice.  The  court 
ordered  the  guilty,  almost  immediately  upon  the  agreements  of 
the  juries,  to  appear  in  court  for  punishment,  and  terms  of 
eighteen  months  in  the  State  Prison  became  the  prevailing  sen- 
tence. When  they  presented  themselves  at  the  bar  they  were  in 
every  case  accompanied  by  bondsmen  secured  by  Sheriff  Davis 
for  them,  and  in  every  case  they  met  the  sentences  with  notices 
of  appeal  to  higher  courts.  The  points  upon  which  the  appeals 
were  based  had  been  already  adjudicated  against  them  in  the 
appeal  of  the  first- convicted  board,  and  the  appeals  had  the 
appearance  of  impudent  challenges  of  Judge  Lippincott's  au- 


348  MODERN   BATTLES   OF  TRENTON. 

thority — made  all  the  more  brazen  by  the  circumstance  that 
many  of  those  who  thus  purchased  a  few  months  of  freedom 
had  practically  made  no  defense  at  their  trials. 

Two  or  three  of  the  less  refractory  suspects  had,  however, 
appeared  in  court  and  met  the  charges  with  pleas  of  non  vult, 
that  were  at  once  practical  confessions  of  their  guilt  and  appeals 
to  the  court  for  clemency.  Judge  Lippincott  exacted  from  these 
an  engagement  that,  abstaining  from  appeal,  they  would  bow 
submissively  to  the  judgment  of  the  court;  and  in  their  cases 
he  reduced  the  penalty  from  the  orthodox  eighteen  months  in  the 
State  Prison  to  nine  months  in  the  penitentiary.  Judge  Kenny, 
who  owed  his  seat  on  the  bench  to  ring  influences,  made  a  dead- 
lock with  the  Presiding  Judge  in  the  interest  of  the  convicts. 
He  called  the  arrangement  that  led  the  prisoner  to  forego  his 
appeal  as  the  price  of  a  reduced  sentence  "  a  bargain,"  and 
refused  to  join  with  the  Presiding  Justice  in  imposing  the  lighter 
judgment.  Albert  Hoffman,  the  third  member  of  the  court, 
was  in  Europe  at  the  time ;  and  the  imposition  of  sentence  had 
to  be  delayed  pending  his  return  to  his  desk.  Eiward  M.  Stan- 
ton, an  active  ring  adherent,  made  a  hasty  trip  across  the  ocean 
iust  after  the  deadlock  had  occurred,  and  returned  on  the  same 
steamer  that  brought  Judge  Hoffman  back.  The  waiting  public 
indulged  meanwhile  in  speculations  as  to  Hoffman's  likely  atti- 
tude in  the  controversy.  To  the  surprise  of  everybody,  he 
joined  Judge  Kenny  in  his  opposition  to  Judge  Lippincott,  and 
the  Presiding  Judge  found  himself  humiliated  in  the  house  of 
his  friends  by  the  influence  of  the  ring  he  had  so  fearlessly 
<5rushed  under  his  heel. 

A  startling  phase  of  the  prosecutions  was  that  as  quickly  as 
the  accused  men  were  convicted  the  ring  boards  in  Jersey  City 
took  them  into  the  public  service.  They  were  given  places  as 
<;lerk8,  janitors,  inspectors,  and  when,  after  countless  vicissitudes, 
they  were  coralled  for  removal  to  the  cells  to  which  they  had 
been  condemned,  the  wife  of  one  who  had  been  janitor  of  the 
building  in  which  a  public  board  transacted  its  business,  was 
appointed  to  serve  in  his  stead  while  he  served  out  his  term. 

As  everybody  expected  it  would,  the  Supreme  Court  affirmed 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  349 

the  convictions  and  the  public  believed  that  justice  had  at  last 
overtaken  the  crowd,  but  the  brazen  crew  marched  into  Judge 
Lippincott's  presence  equipped  with  bondsmen  again  and  served 
notice  of  another  appeal  to  the  Court  of  Errors.  Here  there 
was  a  long  delay  before  a  decision  was  reached,  and  it  was 
argued  from  it  that  the  highest  court  had  concluded  to  set  aside  the 
convictions ;  but  when  Chief  Justice  Beasley  handed  down  the 
decision,  the  community  was  overjoyed  to  see  that  the  court  had 
upborne  Judge  Lippincott's  rulings  and  swept  away  the  last 
hope  of  the  doomed  crew. 

Some  preliminary  explanation  is  necessary  to  make  clear  the 
motive  and  purpose  of  the  next  move  of  the  convicted  men  in 
their  desperate  fight  for  liberty.  A  colored  ex-prize-fighter 
named  Hallinger,  who  had  turned  preacher,  had,  while  the  trials 
were  in  progress,  buried  a  hatchet  in  the  head  of  the  woman 
whom  he  called  his  wife,  at  her  home  in  Jersey  City.  A  hot 
pursuit  resulted  in  his  capture  and  he  was  lodged  in  jail  on  a 
charge  of  murder.  When  arraigned  in  court,  he  had  pleaded 
guilty,  and  the  sentence  of  death  had  been  pronounced  upon 
him.  After  the  gallows  had  been  erected,  a  legal  adventurer,, 
named  Charles  J.  Peshal,  who  had  quartered  himself  at  Taylor's 
Hotel,  in  Jersey  City,  visited  him  in  his  cell  and,  assuring  him 
that  he  would  not  hang,  bade  him  be  of  good  cheer.  So  little 
was  thought  of  this  interference  that  the  preparations  for  the 
hanging  went  actively  forward.  The  morning  of  the  dreaded 
day  dawned.  Hallinger,  arrayed  in  a  sombre  suit  of  black,  had 
eaten  his  last  meal  and  said  his  last  prayer  and  was  preparing 
for  the  final  scene,  when  Peshal  dashed  into  the  Sheriff's  office 
with  a  stay.  He  had  made  a  flying  trip  to  Trenton,  and 
applied  to  Judge  Green,  of  the  United  States  courts,  for  a 
habeas  corpus,  and  a  review  of  the  proceedings  that  had  eventu- 
ated in  Hallinger's  sentence.  His  plea  was  that  the  courts  could 
not  hang  a  man  upon  his  own  plea  of  guilty,  and  that  when 
such  a  plea  was  entered  there  must  be  a  trial  by  a  jury  to  de- 
termine the  degree  of  guilt.  Judge  Green  refused  to  grant  the 
writ. 


S50  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

"  TheD,"  said  Peshal,  "  I  appeal  to  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court." 

The  right  of  appeal  was  one  that  could  not  be  denied,  and  the 
lawyer's  notice  of  appeal  carried  with  it  a  stay  of  the  execution 
pending  its  determination.  So  the  gallows  were  taken  down, 
Hallinger  laid  off  his  suit  of  black,  and,  in  the  joy  of  prolonged 
life,  began  to  sing  hymns.  The  appeal  lagged  and  lagged. 
When  it  finally  reached  a  hearing,  Peshal  did  not  even  take  the 
trouble  to  prosecute  it,  but  let  it  go  by  default.  The  Judges  at 
Washington  dismissed  it  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  the  blood- 
stained colored  exhorter  was  taken  into  court  and  a  new  day  for 
his  hanging  was  fixed.  When  the  last  hours  approached  again, 
Peshal  made  a  second  trip  to  Trenton  and  a  second  application 
for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus.     It  was  refused,  of  course. 

"  Then,"  exclaimed  Peshal  again,  "  I  appeal." 

The  execution  was  stayed  again,  and  Hallinger  passed  the 
hour  that  was  to  have  been  his  last  in  a  game  of  cards  with  his 
watcher.  The  appeal  was  again  dismissed,  Hallinger  was  sen- 
tenced for  a  third  time,  another  groundless  application  for  habeas 
corpus  was  interposed,  another  appeal  taken,  and  the  execution 
deferred  for  the  third  time,  and  it  was  yet  a  mooted  question, 
when  the  ballot-box  stuffers  had  lost  their  final  appeal  to  the 
Jersey  courts,  whether  the  colored  assassin  would  ever  meet  the 
doom  to  which  the  courts  had  condemned  him. 

When  they  had  played  their  last  card  in  the  State  courts  and 
lost,  the  convicted  election  officers  prepared  to  employ  the  same 
tactics  that  had  kept  Hallinger  for  more  than  two  years  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  courts,  a  ad  they  retained  Peshal  to  interpose  to 
save  them.  The  moment  the  failure  of  their  appeal  before  the 
Court  of  Errors  became  known,  the  lawyer  stole  quietly  off  to 
Trenton  to  find  a  United  States  Court  Judge.  Judge  Lippincott 
had,  however,  been  informed  of  the  movement,  and  to  defeat  it 
he  hastened  a  detail  of  trusty  officers  out  into  the  highways  and 
byways  to  bring  the  convicted  men  in.  They  succeeded  admira- 
bly in  their  mission,  and  by  evening  there  was  a  "round-up" 
•of  all  the  crew  except  four  in  Judge  Lippincott's  court-room. 
The  Judge  informed  them  of  the  finding  of  the  Court  of  Errors, 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         351 

and  notified  them  that  they  had  no  choice  now  but  to  suffer  the 
punishment  they  had  contumaciously  escaped  for  nearly  two 
years.  Coaches  were  in  waiting  for  them  in  the  jail  yard.  The 
officers  bundled  them  into  these,  and,  forewarned  against  allow- 
ing any  interference,  hurried  them  off  to  the  prison.  Peshal 
had  not  had  good  luck  in  finding  a  United  States  Court  Judge, 
and  the  court  had  forestalled  his  interference. 

During  the  two  years  covered  by  the  incidents  attending  the 
trials,  Davis's  term  as  Sheriff  had  expired,  and,  in  the  exercise 
of  his  sovereignty  over  the  party,  he  had  made  his  deputy,  John 
J.  McPhillips,  his  successor.  Anticipating  the  surrender  of  his 
shrievalty,  he  had,  as  much  as  a  year  before,  induced  a  Board 
of  Freeholders  that  acknowledged  him  as  a  master  to  appoint 
himself  Keeper  of  the  County  Jail.  He  was  in  care  of  the  jail 
at  the  time  the  convictions  were  affirmed,  anxiously  awaiting 
Peshal's  return  from  his  secret  mission.  He  accompanied  the 
baffled  crew  to  the  railroad  depot,  to  offer  them  condolences 
and  give  them  assurances  that  their  families  should  not  suffer 
while  they  were  doing  the  State's  service. 

The  four  whom  the  court's  officers  had  been  unable  to  find 
were  still  at  large  when  the  train  rolled  out  from  under  the 
vaulted  iron  shed  at  Jersey  City  for  Trenton.  By  night  it  was 
rumored  that  Peshal  had  served  a  notice  on  Sheriff  McPhillips 
and  the  imprisonment  of  the  missing  four  had  been  delayed  by 
a  stay  from  a  United  States  Court  Justice.  Application  for  a 
habeas  corpus  could  not  have  been  possible  unless  the  men  had 
been  restrained  of  their  liberty,  and,  concluding  that  the  four  must 
have  been  secretly  lodged  in  the  jail  to  give  color  to  Peshal's 
application  in  their  behalf.  Judge  Lippincott  went  from  his  home 
to  make  inquiry.  It  was  his  purpose  to  hasten  them  away  at  once, 
before  Peshal  could  have  time  to  perfect  his  papers.  The  books 
showed  no  record  of  their  presence  there,  and  the  clerk  at  the 
desk  assured  him  that  they  were  not  in  custody.  As  the  night 
wore  on,  however,  it  became  more  and  more  certain  that  Davis 
had  actually  taken  them  into  the  jail  to  hide  them  till  Peshal 
oould  get  back  with  his  stay.  They  were  not  being  detained  iu 
the  wards  as  prisoners,  but  were  being  entertained  as  the  j  ailer's 
guests  in  his  private  apartments. 


352  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TKENTON. 

Judge  Lippincott  went  to  his  court-room  in  the  morning  be- 
fore Peshal  reached  Jersey  City,  and  he  set  all  the  machinery  of 
his  court  in  motion  to  force  Davis  to  produce  the  hidden  con- 
victs. The  jailer  dodged  the  court's  orders,  for  delay,  till  the 
Judge  took  the  matter  into  his  own  hands.  The  constablee  were 
directed  to  take  them  into  custody  at  once  and  hurry  them  away 
to  State  Prison.  Just  as  they  were  about  to  leave  the  court- 
room, Peshal  dashed  in.  He  had  a  stay  and  served  it.  The 
court  looked  at  the  writ,  saw  that  it  had  been  based  on  a  false 
affidavit  that  the  men  had  been  restrained  of  their  liberty  in  the 
jail,  and  directed  the  constables  to  pay  no  heed  to  it.  Peshal 
threatened  contempt,  and  all  kinds  of  terrors ;  but  the  court  wa© 
unmoved,  and  to  prison  the  hidden  four  were  whirled. 

The  United  States  Grand  Jury  indicted  Davis  for  his  part  in 
that  aftdir,  but  United  States  District  Attorney  Henry  S.  White 
delayed  calling  him  to  trial  for  months.  Meanwhile  Sheriff 
McPhillips,  the  essential  witness  for  the  State,  died  suddenly 
and  the  prosecution  became  impossible. 

While  the  appeals  taken  to  the  Court  of  Errors  were  pending^ 
the  Legislature  passed  an  act  authorizing  the  Court  of  Pardons- 
to  release  prisoners  on  tickets  of  leave  on  assurances  of  good 
behavior.  Allan  McDermott  made  application  for  their  release 
under  this  law ;  and  the  Court  of  Pardons,  on  the  Christmas 
Eve  following,  let  them  all  free,  after  a  service  of  less  than  five 
months.  There  might  have  been  little  public  criticism  of  this 
display  of  clemency  if  the  court  had  made  discrimination  that 
the  characters  of  the  men  and  the  nature  of  the  proofs  against 
them  might  have  justified.  Some  of  the  active  conspirators  were 
in  the  released  crew ;  but  many  of  the  men  had  been  guilty 
only  of  technical  oflfenses.  Their  guilt  lay  in  having  ignor- 
antly,  or  carelessly,  signed  false  returns  prepared  by  their  asso- 
ciates, and  which  they  may  have  believed  to  have  been  correct ; 
and  as  to  those  the  exercise  of  a  wise  clemency  might  have  been 
excused  by  the  public.  But  the  Pardon  Board  drew  no  line& 
whatever,  and  by  the  vote  of  all  the  members  excepting  Chan- 
cellor McGill,  let  the  whole  crowd,  the  conscious  participants 
with  those  whose  only  sin  had  been  their  carelessness  or  their 
credulity,  loose  to  prey  upon  the  public  again. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


353 


The  exciting  and  sensational  pursuit  of  the  ballot-box  crew 
served  as  an  object  lesson  that  the  advocates  of  a  better  ballot 
system  improved.  In  his  Inaugural  insistment  for  a  Ballot 
Reform  Jaw,  Governor  Abbett  had  but  voiced  a  sentiment  that 
was  universal  throughout  the  country,  and  the  Governors  of 
many  other  States  had  spoken  in  the  same  vein.  Daniel  M.  Kane, 
a  Democratic  member  from  Middlesex  with  some  Labor  lean- 
ings, had  in  1889  brought  the  Australian  ballot  system  to  at- 
tention, and  when  the 
Legislature  of  1890  set- 
tled down  to  the  prob- 
lem seriously,  its  con- 
templation of  the  subject 
was  along  the  line  of 
that  system.  Senator 
Werts,  of  Morris,  drew 
the  bill — it  is  known  as 
the  Werts  Ballot  Re- 
form law — and  with  the 
light-  haired  Voorhees, 
of  Union,  perfected  it. 
It  incorporated  the  idea 
of  the  official  ballot,  is- 
sued to  the  election  offi- 
cers by  the  county  or 
city  officers,  and  of  the 
closets  at  the  booths  in 
which  voters  are  re- 
quired to  seclude  them- 
selves in  the  preparation  of  their  ballots.  It  permitted  only  the 
parties  which  had  polled  a  certain  percentage  of  the  total  vote  to 
file  nominations  made  in  convention,  forced  the  less-numerous 
parties  to  the  expedient  of  putting  their  candidates  forward  by 
petition,  and  provided  for  the  selection  of  poll  attendants  by  the 
two  predominant  parties.  By  surrounding  the  procurement  of 
official  ballots  with  obstructions,  and  depriving  them  of  poll  work- 
ers to  handle  the  tickets  after  they  had  been  secured,  it  discouraged 

23 


Foster  M.  Voorhees. 


354  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

the  canvass  of  the  smaller  parties,  and  made  independent  party 
movements  almost  impossible.  The  Republicans  hoped  through 
it  to  crowd  the  Prohibitionists  out  of  the  polls ;  and  the  Demo- 
crats employed  it  with  considerable  effect  to  prevent  threatened 
organized  revolts  against  the  ascendancy  of  the  masters  of  the 
party. 

The  Prohibitionists  felt  especially  aggrieved  by  the  difficulties 
it  threw  about  their  organized  work  for  votes.  The  venerable 
Oounselor  Stephen  B.  Ransom,  of  Jersey  City,  who  had  been 
the  Prohibition  candidate  for  Governor,  in  1880,  purposely 
violated  its  provisions,  in  order  to  test  its  constitutionality,  and 
submitted  to  a  judgment  involving  a  fine  which  he  had  to  pay 
when  the  courts  sustained  the  act  as  constitutional  and  effective. 


CHAPTER   XXIX. 


<)rOVERNOR   AbBETT    BuILDS    HiMSELF   INTO   AN   AuTOCRAT   AND   HeLPS   A 

Greedy  Crew  of  Corruptionists  to  Overrun  the  State. 


li.  ABBETT  had  gone  to  the  Governorship  in  1890 
with  a  specific  object  in  view  and  a  carefully  prear- 
ranged method  of  reaching  it.  The  object  was  the 
seat  in  the  United  States  Senate  which  the  accidental 
Blodgett  was  to  vacate  in  1893.  The  method  was  to  entrench 
himself  so  securely  that  no  one  would  dare  to  confront  him.  If 
he  had  paraded  his  very  democratic  democracy  in  the  campaign 
of  1883  by  boasting  that  there  could  be  "  no  admission  by  card 
business  in  his  "  after  he  reached  the  Governorship,  he  now  se- 
cluded himself  far  away  from  the  public  reach ;  and  one  had  to 
pass  through  half  a  dozen  thicknesses  of  ante- chamber  and  to  brave 
the  scrutiny  of  half  a  dozen  lackeys  to  secure  an  audience  with 
him.  His  temper  lost  its  magnetism.  His  manner  was  im- 
perious ;  his  voice  became  irritable,  harsh  and  rasping.  He  was 
overbearing  and  impatient  of  advice.  He  came  to  be  known  as 
the  Czar,  and  the  government  he  established  over  the  people 
was  so  unyielding  and  searching  that  it  came  to  be  recognized 
as  an  autocracy. 

His  advent  had  been  heralded  by  a  sudden  increase  of  the 
gubernatorial  salary  from  $5,000  to  $10,000  a  year,  which  the 
Legislature  voted  to  him.  The  increase  could  not  be  made  after 
he  had  entered  upon  his  administration.  He  took  office  the  second 
week  in  January.  The  Legislature  had  been  in  session,  with 
Governor  Green  at  the  helm,  for  a  week  before  his  inauguration. 
That  week  was  improved  for  the  enactment  of  a  law  making 
the  increase.  Senator  Werts  introduced  the  bill,  and  it  passed 
the  Republican  Senate  with  even  less  friction  than  in  the  Demo- 
cratic House.  In  the  House,  one  of  the  Democratic  members, 
•Colonel  Edward  H.  Snyder,  of  Orange,  voted  against  it.     Erwin 

(355) 


356  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

and  Potts  of  Hudson,  Ulrich  of  Union  and  Pollock  of  Essex 
left  their  fellow-Republicans  to  vote  for  it.  Governor  Green 
signed  it  the  moment  it  reached  him,  and  Mr.  Abbett  had  so 
been  enabled  to  enter  upon  the  duties  of  his  office  as  one  of  th€ 
very  few  $10,000  a  year  Governors  in  the  Union. 

The  moment  he  took  the  reins  in  his  hands  he  began  building 
up  the  strong  personal  government  that  he  probably  had  in  his 
eye  when  he  consented  to  serve  in  the  office  for  a  second  term. 
He  took  the  portly  and  brainy  Allan  L.  McDermott  into  his- 
counsel  as  his  chief  adviser.  Though  a  young  man,  McDer- 
mott's  mental  powers  and  his  strong  personality  had  already^ 
made  him  a  positive  force  in  State  politics.  He  had  studied  law 
in  Governor  Abbett's  office  and  advanced  himself  step  by  step 
till  he  had  commanded  a  position  for  himself  among  the  Demo- 
cratic leaders  of  the  State.  He  was  a  brilliant  strategist,  a 
wonder  as  an  organizer,  a  dashing  cavalryman  in  politics,  but 
cool,  daring  and  intrepid  in  the  battle.  He  was  a  man  after 
Mr.  Abbett's  own  pattern,  and  no  one  felt  surprised  when  it  was 
announced  that  he  had  received  the  handsomely  remunerative 
clerkship  of  the  Court  of  Chancery  at  the  Governor's  hands  as 
the  reward  of  his  loyalty. 

The  control  of  Democratic  affairs  throughout  the  State  resided 
largely  with  a  little  coterie  of  men  who  had  made  themselves 
leaders  in  their  several  localities.  The  veteran  of  veterans, 
Miles  Ross,  had,  as  the  result  of  three  congressional  canvasses 
in  the  Third  district,  come  to  be  recognized  as  a  power  in  Mid- 
dlesex, Monmouth  and  Somerset  counties.  The  subjection  in 
which  Dennis  McLaughlin  and  Robert  Davis  held  the  party  in 
Hudson  has  already  been  described.  The  nervous  and  twitchy 
James  N.  Pidcock  had  an  easily-distinguishable  following  in 
Hunterdon,  Sussex  and  Warren.  Essex  owced  to  two  leaders. 
Krueger,  the  Assemblyman  who  had  given  Mr.  McPherson  so 
much  concern  in  the  senatorial  canvass  of  1877,  had  built  a 
great  brewery  and  amassed  an  enormous  fortune.  Hundreds 
of  beer  sellers  whom  he  had  started  in  business  were  under 
obligations  to  him  for  their  licenses,  for  their  saloons,  for  their 
beer  even,  and  their  grateful  adhesion  to  him  strengthened  hi& 


MODERN  BA.TTLES  OF  TRENTON.         357 

liands  for  political  effort.  A  very  much  sleeker  and  brighter 
and  keener  manipulator  stepped  out  from  his  shadow,  however, 
as  a  factor,  during  Governor  Abbett's  first  administration,  till 
he  had  grown  to  be  known  in  high  State  councils.  The  portly 
and  dignified  and  rosy-cheeked  James  Smith,  Jr.,  beamed  to 
the  right  of  him  and  beamed  to  the  left  of  him,  and  dispensed 
his  bounties  from  a  deep  purse  with  an  admirable  discrimination, 
and  responded,  handsomely,  besides,  to  every  call  for  money  re- 
quired- to  conduct  the  State  campaigns.  Governor  Abbett's 
quick  eye  saw  the  opportunities  for  usefulness  there  were  in  him. 
He  made  him  one  of  his  personal  lieutenants,  and  he  quickly 
rose  into  a  star  of  the  first  magnitude.  Benjamin  F.  Lee,  who 
had  all  this  time  held  on  to  the  Supreme  Court  Clerkship  to 
which  Governor  Parker  had  appointed  him,  had  not  lost  his 
power  as  a  moulder  of  destinies  in  South  Jersey,  and  William 
J.  Thompson  had  dared  even  to  challenge  General  Se well's 
supremacy  in  Camden. 

Thompson  had  been  a  barkeeper  at  the  start ;  but  he  had 
been  prudent,  and  with  his  savings  he  had  purchased  a  summer 
resort  for  Philadelphians  at  Gloucester  City.  It  became  popu- 
lar with  a  class,  and  he  followed  it  up  by  opening  a  race-track 
upon  the  grounds.  This  race-course  had  been  a  mint  to  him, 
and  he  had  amassed  a  fortune  counted  by  the  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands. He  impressed  his  touts  and  camp-followers  into  his 
political  Ecrvice,  and  through  them  exerted  enough  influence  to 
daim  recognition  as  a  South  Jersey  factor. 

Governor  Abbett's  plan  of  campaign  for  the  Senatorship 
through  the  Governorship  contemplated  the  division  of  the 
State  into  little  principalities,  as  one  might  say,  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  these  powerful  local  leaders  as  his  lieutenants.  The 
functions  of  government  were  to  be  gathered  by  legislation,  as 
completely  as  conditions  would  permit,  into  his  hands,  and  the 
enormous  patronage  thus  placed  at  his  disposal  was  to  be  filtered 
to  the  several  localities  through  the  local  bosses.  These  lieu- 
tenants, in  turn,  had  their  thoroughly-disciplined  army  of  sub- 
ordinates, working,  from  high  to  low,  with  the  precision  of  a 
military  organization.     With  the  aid  of  Colonel  Edward  Liv- 


358 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


ingston  Price,  a  distiDguished  Newark  lawyer,  who  by  his  skill 
ia  organization  had  commanded  the  recognition  of  the  Essex 
Democracy,  Mr.  Smith  turned  the  Democratic  household  in 
that  county  into  a  militia  organization.  There  was,  first,  the 
Generalissimo,  Smith.  From  the  County  Committee-men  he 
selected  a  leader  in  each  of  the  Assembly  districts.  This  leader,, 
in  his  turn,  named  the  chief  worker  in  each  ward  or  township ;. 
the  chief  worker  in  ward  or  township  was  aided,  in  his  turn,  by 

a  lieutenant  in  each 
polling  precinct. 
Whenever  an  office 
was  to  be  filled  in 
any  of  the  town- 
ships, for  instance^ 
it  was  the  business 
of  the  leader  in  the 
precinct  to  which 
the  office  fell  to  find 
out  who  could  be  of 
most  service  in  that 
particular  locality 
to  the  machine ;  he 
would  report  the 
name  to  the  town- 
ship leader ;  the 
township  leader 
would  send  it  up  to 
the  district  leader  j 
the  district  leader 
would  pass  it  along 
to  the  potential  chairman  of  the  committee  ;  the  chairman  would 
whisper  it  into  the  ear  of  Generalissimo  Smith  ;  the  Generalis- 
simo would  present  it  to  Governor  Abbett  with  his  compliments ; 
and  the  Governor  would  acknowledge  its  receipt  by  writing  it  on 
a  parchment  commissioning  the  man  whom  it  represented  to  fill 
the  vacant  place.  It  was  not  possible  to  organize  the  party  in 
some  of  the  other  localities  into  military  camps  of  such  rigid 


Colonel  Edward  L.  Price. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  THENTON.         359 


discipline,  but  the  model  was  one  which  all  of  the  lieutenants 
patterned  as  closely  as  circumstances  would  allow ;  and  Gover- 
nor Abbett  looked  forward  to  the  time  when  he  was  to  be  just 
as  fully  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Democratic  party  as  he  was 
of  the  State  militia. 

Legislation  was  needed,  however,  for  the  centralization  of  the 
powers  which  would  enable  him  to  hold  the  machine  loyally  to 
him.  The  functions  of  government  were  at  the  time  widely 
distributed.  They  were  exercised  by  a  hundred  diiFerent  hands. 
The  Governors  of  the  past  had  been  weak  or  strong  according 
as  the  Legislatures  were  with  them  or  against  them.  Governor 
Green  had  been  forced  to  deal  with  Republican  Legislatures, 
and  they  bad  stripped  him  of  one  prerogative  after  another  till 
he  had  become  a  mere  figurehead  in  State  affairs.  The  Legis- 
lature of  1890,  which  went  into  Trenton  with  Governor  Abbett, 
was  divided  politically.  The  Assembly  might  have  been  ready 
to  give  him  whatever  of  legislation  his  plan  of  reign  contem- 
plated. The  Republican  Senate  would  be  sure  to  defeat  it,  and 
nothing  was  attempted. 

But  the  Legislatures  that  met  in  Trenton  in  January,  1891, 
and  January,  1892,  were  Democratic  in  both  branches,  and  the 
submissive  agents  of  the  Governor.  They  assembled  only  to  do 
the  things  he  desired  to  have  done ;  and  so  thoroughly  effaced 
themselves  as  parts  of  the  law-making  machinery  of  the  State 
that  when  they  adjourned  sine  die  they  left  half  or  more  of  the 
bills  they  had  passed  in  Governor  Abbett's  hands  for  such  dis- 
position as  he  saw  fit  to  make  of  them.  Ordinarily  the  passage 
of  a  bill  by  the  Houses  was  followed  by  its  prompt  presentation 
to  the  Governor.  If  he  was  not  disposed  to  favor  it,  its  passage 
over  his  veto  was  still  possible.  But  in  the  Legislatures  of  1891 
and  1892  the  bulk  of  the  passed  bills  were  held  in  the  Passed  Bills 
Committee's  hands  till  the  end  of  the  session,  and  then  handed 
to  the  Governor.  If  he  were  opposed  to  any,  there  was  no 
Legislature  at  hand  to  re-enact  it,  and  his  refusal  to  sign  it  was 
sufficient  to  defeat  it  forever.  The  showy  Robert  Adrain,  of 
Middlesex,  presided  over  the  Senate,  and  blonde  James  J.  Ber- 
gen, of  Somerset,  was  Speaker  of  the  Assembly  at  both  sessions. 


360 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF   TRENTON. 


The  Governor  used  the  first  of  these  Legislatures  to  seize  all 
State  functions  for  his  use  and  enjoyment.  The  State  Boards 
were  all  to  be  made  up  of  men  of  his  appointment,  and  every- 
thing they  were  to  be  allowed  to  do  was  to  be  done  only  "  with 
the  Governor's  approval."  The  tenures  of  some  of  these 
appointees  were  indeed  to  be  only  at  the  "  pleasure  of  the  Gov- 
ernor." New  departments  were  created,  not  more  to  make 
places  for  favorites  than  to  overawe  and  terrorize  business  and 
community  influences  that  might  be  tempted  into  active  oppo- 
sition to  him.  The  office  of  Banking  and  Insurance  Commis- 
sioner was  created,  with 
searching  functions.  A 
State  Tax  Board  was  in- 
vested with  such  ransack- 
ing powers  that  no  tax- 
payer in  the  State  could 
escape  its  scrutiny.  The 
State  Board  of  Assessors, 
which  made  up  the  tax 
hills  for  the  railroads,  was 
put  under  the  heel  of  the 
Chief  Magistrate.  The 
control  of  the  State 
Lunatic  Asylums  was 
taken  out  of  the  hands  of 
those  in  charge  and  given 
to  a  new  board  of  his  appointment.  The  State  Riparian  Board 
were  forbidden  to  make  a  lease  of  land  without  his  express 
approval.  The  management  of  the  State  Prison,  of  the  Nor- 
mal School,  of  the  Boys'  Reform  School,  at  Jamesburg ;  of  the 
Girls'  Industrial  School,  at  Trenton ;  of  the  Soldiers'  Home, 
the  deaf  and  dumb  retreats — of  everything — was  in  his  keep- 
ing. He  was  even  authorized  to  draw  money  from  the  State 
treasury  for  any  public  purpose  that  commended  itself  to  his 
judgment. 

The  battery,  with  stones  and  missiles,  of  the  big  Clark  thread 
factories  in  East  Newark,  by  an  enormous  mob  of  locked- out 


J-tergeu. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         361 


strikers,  next  furnished  tiim  with  a  convenient  pretext  for 
making  himself  the  master  of  even  the  local  police  forces  every- 
where. There  was  no  agency  of  repression  in  times  of  tumult 
except  the  militia,  and  to  set  the  soldiery  upon  the  citizens  was 
only  to  inflame  them  to  greater  excesses.  They  could  be  much 
more  smoothly  and  easily  over-awed  by  the  police,  to  the  sight 
of  whose  blue  coats  and  brass  buttons  as  an  emblem  of  author- 
ity the  people  had  become  accustomed.  It  was  wise,  therefore, 
so  the  more  than  plausible  argument  ran,  that  the  Chief  Magis- 
trate should  have  the  police  of  the  cities  and  towns  subject  to 
his  immediate  orders  in  times  of  tumult.  The  bill  creating  a 
State  Chief  of  Police,  who  upon  the  order  of  the  Governor 
could  draft  a  posse  from  the  police  forces  anywhere  in  the  State, 
was  the  outcome  of  it.  It  encountered  the  opposition  in  the 
Assembly  of  Assemblyman  John  R.  Hardin,  John  Neider  of 
Essex,  Mitchell  B.  Perkins  and  A.  Harry  White  of  Burling- 
ton, Wm.  B.  Campbell  of  Monmouth,  and  D.  W.  Haggerty  of 
Warren,  all  Democrats,  but  was  passed  in  spite  of  them.  In 
the  Senate  it  was  championed  by  Senator  Edward  F.  McDonald, 
of  Hudson.  Senator  George  T.  Cranmer,  of  Ocean,  read  a 
paper  numerously  signed  by  the  Clark  Thread  Works'  employes 
against  it,  but  it  passed  there  too  by  Democratic  votes,  and  the 
•Governor  made  it  law  by  signing  it. 

The  public  prints  insisted,  however,  upon  seeking  sinister 
motives  for  the  Governor's  promotion  of  the  act.  Dennis  Mc- 
Laughlin was  at  the  time  running  his  race  track  at  Guttenberg 
under  the  protection  of  grand  juries  drawn  by  Davis,  to  the 
great  scandal  of  Hudson  county.  He  had  put  himself  under 
engagement  to  deliver  the  Assembly  vote  of  the  county  to  the 
•Governor  for  the  Senatorship  when  the  time  came.  The  menace 
of  a  descent  upon  his  race-course  by  the  State  Police  was  ex- 
pected to  keep  him  to  his  engagement.  The  selection  of  Mc- 
Laughlin's friend,  ex-Assemblyman  Feeney,  to  serve  as  the 
Chief  of  the  service  was  looked  upon  as  an  olive  branch  of 
peace  as  long  as  McLaughlin  was  properly  submissive.  The 
"Governor  left  nothing  to  Feeney 's  discretion,  however.     The  act 


362  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

under  which  he  held  subjected  him  to  removal  whenever  the 
Governor  was  displeased  with  him. 

His  next  move  was  to  force  the  liquor  men  into  an  attitude 
of  friendly  compliance.  This  he  proposed  to  do  with  an  act 
establishing  a  State  License  Board,  with  supervisory  control 
over  all  the  local  Excise  Boards.  But  old  Assemblyman  Nash,, 
of  Camden,  made  such  an  outcry  against  this  invasion  of  liquor 
rights,  in  caucus  and  out  of  it,  that  the  scheme  was  abandoned. 

It  was  replaced  with  another  establishing  County  Excise 
Boards  of  the  Governor's  selection  wherever  and  whenever  in 
his  judgment  they  were  required.  These  boards  were  endowed 
with  enormous  prerogatives.  They  could  grant  licenses  that 
had  been  refused  by  the  local  boards  and  revoke  those  which  the 
local  boards  had  granted.  They  could  force  saloons  upon  locali- 
ties that  had  set  their  faces  against  them,  and  close  them  in  com- 
munities that  wanted  them.  Cumberland  county,  which  wa& 
built  on  the  temperance  idea,  learned  with  dismay  that  one  of 
these  boards  was  to  be  named  to  open  saloons  on  her  soil,  and 
gave  riotous  expression  to  her  alarm.  Her  people  threatened  to 
boycott  and  ostracise  any  man  who  should  serve  on  the  commis- 
sion, and  the  Governor  found  it  difficult  to  find  anyone  willing 
to  act  there.  When  at  last  a  Vineland  citizen  consented  to 
accept,  his  wife  and  children  were  so  "  cut,"  ignored  and  abused 
by  the  people  that  they  prayed  him  to  resign,  and  when  another 
was  found  dead  in  his  office  soon  after  his  appointment,  it  was 
hailed  all  over  the  county  as  an  expression  of  Divine  indigna- 
tion at  the  invasion  of  the  ungodly. 

Another  act  turned  all  the  District  Court  Judges  out  of  office 
to  pave  the  way  for  men  of  the  Governor's  appointment;  another 
gave  Jersey  City  and  Newark  three  Police  Justices  each,  to  do 
business  to  which  the  two  in  commission  in  each  city  devoted 
less  than  two  hours  a  day.  Another  degraded  the  Republican 
Police  and  the  Republican  Fire  Chiefs  in  Jersey  City  and 
Newark,  protected  from  removal  by  a  tenure  of  office  act,  and 
set  up  supernumerary  Police  and  Fire  Superintendents  to  be 
chosen  by  the  Democratic  Mayors  of  the  two  cities  over  them. 
He  made  bis  old  law  student,  ex-Speaker  William  C.  Heppen- 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  363: 

heimer,  Comptroller  of  the  State  Treasury ;  named  George  R. 
Gray,  of  Newark,  to  be  State  Treasurer  as  a  concession  to  Jamea 
Smith,  Jr. ;  put  his  son  Leon  at  the  Private  Secretary's  desk  in 
his  department ;  procured  for  his  son  William  F.  an  appoint- 
ment as  a  special  counsel  to  the  State  Tax  Board,  and  seated  a 
brother  of  his  own  at  one  of  the  bookkeeping  desks  in  the 
Comptroller's  office. 

The  Legislature  of  1891,  whose  overwhelming  Democratic 
majority  made  these  seizures  of  power  possible,  did  not  close  its 
session  without  perfecting  legislation  looking  to  the  perpetuation 
of  the  party's  supremacy.  It  was  vested  by  the  Constitution 
with  the  prerogative  of  re-apportioning  the  Assemblymen  among 
the  counties  and,  of  course,  of  fixing  the  lines  of  the  new 
Assembly  districts.  It  went  to  the  discharge  of  this  function 
with  the  avowed  purpose  of  arranging  a  gerrymander  that  would 
assure  to  the  Democrats  at  least  forty  of  the  sixty  Assembly 
seats.  It  was  so  transparently  unfair  and  partisan  that  in  the 
gubernatorial  campaign  of  1892  the  most  effective  of  the  Re- 
publican campaign  documents  was  a  richly- colored  map  showing 
the  divisions.  The  Assembly  campaign  of  1891  was  made 
under  it  and  it  gave  in  the  Assembly  of  1892  forty-two  seats  to 
113,084  Democratic  voters,  and  only  eighteen  seats  to  the  98,534 
Republican  voters.  Effort  was  hopeless  among  the  Republicans 
with  such  a  handicap,  and  they  appealed  to  the  courts  for 
redress.  The  litigation  resulted  in  a  declaration  by  the  Supreme 
Court  that  this  act  was  monstrously  unfair  and  disfranchising, 
and  in  a  decision  that  the  system  of  electing  Assemblymen  by 
districts  was  in  violation  of  the  Constitution,  which  required  the 
election  of  Assembly  delegations  in  bulk,  from  each  county,  by 
the  entire  voters  of  the  county. 

The  Legislature  of  1891  was  the  product  of  a  provisional 
gerrymander  that  had  been  established  by  the  Legislature  of 
1890.  The  Legislature  of  1892,  which  took  up  the  work  of 
strengthening  the  autocracy,  was  the  product  of  this  more  strin- 
gent gerrymander  for  which  the  decennial  apportionment  of 
Assemblymen  had  afforded  the  pretext.  The  two  Houses  of 
1891  had,  as  has  been  seen,  devoted  themselves  mainly  to  the 


364  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

transfer  of  State  prerogatives  to  the  Governor's  hands.  The 
Legislature  of  1892  devoted  itself  to  the  task  of  putting  the 
local  governments  as  much  under  his  control.  The  management 
of  affairs  in  Hudson  and  Essex  counties  had  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  his  followers,  and  an  act  extending  the  terms  of  the 
governing  Boards  of  Freeholders  was  passed  to  keep  them  there. 
The  smaller  counties  were  reached  by  an  act  vacating  the  seats 
in  the  Boards  and  providing  for  the  election  of  others  by  the 
voters  of  the  gerrymandered  districts.  The  gerrymander  had 
produced  a  subservient  Legislature ;  it  was  expected,  by  the  same 
'token,  to  produce  subservient  Boards  of  Freeholders.  The  new 
law  did  not  work  as  it  was  planned  to  work,  however,  at  the 
local  elections  that  were  held  before  the  Legislature  adjourned, 
and  Senator  Hinchliffe,  of  Passaic,  introduced  an  act  turning 
the  new  men  all  out  again. 

Finally  the  cities  were  attacked.  Jersey  City  had  been  so  com- 
pletely mastered  by  the  charter  making  Mayor  Cleveland  the 
sole  patronage- distributing  agent,  that  plans  were  laid  to  apply 
the  principle  to  a  re-organization  of  Newark's  local  government. 
The  Common  Council  was  the  source  of  all  municipal  power 
there.  The  management  of  the  city  finances  was  in  the  care  of 
one  of  the  Council  committees  ;  of  the  Police  Department  in  the 
care  of  another.  A  Fire  Committee  managed  the  Fire  Depart- 
ment, and  a  Street  Committee  had  charge  of  street  openings  and 
improvements.  Joseph  E.  Haynes,  the  Mayor  of  the  city,  was 
an  ancient  pedagogue  of  one  of  the  public  schools,  whom  the 
leaders  had  put  into  politics  ;  and  his  vanity  was  so  swollen  by 
the  attentions  they  paid  to  him  that  he  was  like  putty  in  their 
hands ;  and  they  realized  that  they  could  safely  transfer  all  the 
city  patronage  to  him.  They  controlled  him ;  and  through  him 
they  could  man  the  public  places  with  their  own  retinu6  of  fol- 
lowers. The  Common  Council  was  an  elected  body,  however, 
and  the  people  were  so  wedded  to  their  system  of  representative 
government  that  it  was  not  deemed  safe  to  attempt  to  dispossess 
it  entirely.  The  fertile  brain  of  Colonel  Price  evolved  the 
ischeme  that  left  the  Council  standing,  but  reduced  it  to  a  shell. 
"The  people  could  go  on  electing  Councilmen  as  of  yore ;  but 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  g65. 

after  they  had  been  elected  they  had  nothing  to  do.  All  of  the 
important  councilmanic  functions  were  taken  from  them  and  con- 
ferred upon  a  new  department,  described  as  the  Street  and  Water 
Board,  to  consist  of  five  men,  whom  the  Mayor  wa?  authorized 
to  appoint.  The  only  prerogatives  left  to  the  denuded  repre- 
sentative Council  were  those  of  acting  as  disbursing  agent  for 
the  new  commissioners  and  of  bestowing  the  saloon  licenses. 
The  people  did  not  realize,  at  the  start,  how  completely  the 
introduction  of  this  new  department  revolutionized  the  system 
of  local  government ;  but  by  the  time  Haynes'  term  expired  in 
the  fall,  they  saw  the  purpose  of  the  move  and  had  studied  its^ 
effect,  and  they  rose  in  rebellion.  It  was  part  of  the  scheme  to 
keep  Haynes  in  office  for  another  term ;  but  public  feeling  ran 
so  high  as  the  time  for  the  election  drew  near  that  the  leaders 
hesitated  to  put  him  forward  for  reelection.  The  benignant- 
faced  James  Smith,  Jr.,  was  urged  to  step  into  the  breach  as  a 
candidate,  but  he  declined ;  and  Krueger,  the  corpulent  brewer,, 
who  was  his  associate  in  leadership,  insisted  upon  the  chance 
being  taken  with  Haynes  again. 

The  Republicans  cast  about  for  their  strongest  man  to  con- 
front him  with.  Herman  Lehlbach  was  hailed  on  all  sides  as 
the  man  for  the  emergency.  A  German  surveyor  who  had 
twice  swept  the  city  as  a  candidate  for  Congress,  he  was  looked 
upon  as  the  most  available  man  for  the  nomination.  Newark 
has  never  seen  a  day  of  such  local  excitement  as  that  on  which 
the  people  expressed  their  preferences  between  these  two  can- 
didates. Newark  is  a  city  of  strong  local  pride,  and  residents 
threw  business  to  the  winds  to  take  part  in  the  fray.  Men  who 
never  concerned  themselves  in  municipal  contests,  flocked  to  the 
polls  in  battalions  to  let  loose  their  indignation  in  their  ballots. 

But  the  naturalization  mills  had  been  active  for  weeks  before 
the  eventful  day  arrived,  and  on  their  way  to  the  polls  the 
aroused  citizens  saw  the  streets  swarming  with  a  new  population 
of  voters  that  chatlered  and  clattered  in  a  picturesque  foreign 
jargon.  Gaily-decked  Italians  abounded  on  all  sides.  A  motley 
throng  that  had  never  ventured  out  of  the  River  street  barracks 
invaded  the  villa-lined  thoroughfares  that  only  the  "  quality '' 


366  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

was  wont  to  tread.  The  day  had  the  aspect  of  an  Italian  gala 
day.  Money  was  poured  out  like  water ;  and  every  train,  too, 
brought  companies  of  rough-looking  customers  from  the  neighbor- 
ing towns  to  take  part  in  the  struggle.  In  spite  of  it  all  the  con- 
test was  a  close  one.  Vast  multitudes  of  excited  men  swarmed 
in  the  glare  of  the  electric  lights  around  the  bulletin  boards  of 
the  newspaper  offices  at  night,  with  varying  emotions  of  hope 
and  fear,  hour  after  hour,  watching  the  figures  that  indicated  the 
progress  of  the  count  of  the  vote.  A  pall-like  silence  fell  upon 
them  when  a  shrieking  whistle  rent  the  midnight  air. 

"  That's  Krueger's  crow,"  was  the  universal  comment ;  "  it's 
the  whistle  of  his  brewery  signaling  the  election  of  Haynes." 

And  the  completed  count  showed  that  the  tidings  thus  whistled 
to  the  anxious  citizens  were  not  false  ones.  Haynes  scored  a  re- 
election, by  a  narrow  majority,  to  be  sure,  but  a  sufficiently  pro- 
nounced one  to  confirm  him  in  the  possession  of  his  office,  and 
his  backers  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  local  power  they  had  strug- 
gled so  desperately  to  keep  in  his  hands. 

Newark,  however,  was  not  the  only  municipality  for  which 
the  State  House  autocrats  reached  out  through  the  medium  of 
the  Legislature  of  1892.  The  session  closed  with  an  exciting 
struggle  for  time  for  the  passage  of  an  act  placing  the  govern- 
ments of  Paterson,  Trenton  and  Camden  under  their  control. 
The  constitutional  demand  for  general  laws  regulating  the  in- 
ternal affairs  of  towns  and  cities  made  it  necessary  to  legislate 
for  the  three  cities  in  one  bill.  They  could  be  reached  only  by 
an  act  aimed  at  second-class  cities.  The  problem  could  have 
been  solved  easily  enough  by  making  the  Mayor  in  each  the 
center  of  local  power ;  but  the  misfortune  of  the  situation  was 
that  Camden's  Mayor  was  a  Republican.  He  would  be  sure  to 
dispense  the  power  that  might  be  conferred  upon  him  in  a  man- 
ner not  to  the  liking  of  the  State  House  managers ;  and  legisla- 
tion transferring  all  the  local  functions  it  was  desired  to  reach 
to  the  Mayors  of  second-class  cities,  was  out  of  the  question. 

The  solution  of  the  knotty  problem  in  municipal  manipula- 
tion with  which  the  presence  of  that  uncomplaisant  official  con- 
fronted the  State  House  magnates,  cost  them  many  hours  of 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.         367 

anxious  consultation.  They  finally  evolved  the  most  fantastic 
system  of  local  government  that  the  mind  of  man  ever  con- 
ceived. A  Police  Board,  to  consist  of  members  named  by  the 
"Governor,  was  to  be  made  the  axis  in  the  municipal  machinery 
of  the  three  cities.  When  the  act  was  thrown  into  the  House 
for  passage,  the  session  was  far  advanced  and  the  day  fixed  for 
final  adjournment  was  at  hand.  It  provoked  a  notable  debate. 
Assemblyman  Barton  B.  Hutchinson,  of  Mercer,  a  young  law- 
yer who  acted  as  leader  of  the  minority,  fought  it  tooth  and 
nail  at  every  stage  of  its  passage.  Schoolmaster  Eugene  C.  Cole, 
who  represented  Cape  May  in  the  Chamber,  assailed  it  with 
bitter  satire.  Assemblyman  Herbert  C.  Potts,  of  Hudson,  a 
very  little  man  with  a  very  big  voice — they  used  to  say  that  when 
Potts  was  called  to  the  Speaker's  chair  temporarily  it  was  neces- 
sary to  remove  the  ice  pitcher  so  that  he  could  be  seen,  but  when 
he  aired  his  voice  at  the  Reading  Clerk's  desk  he  was  unani- 
mously voted  the  most  efficient  reader  that  had  ever  officiated 
there — fulminated  against  it.  Young  John  R.  Hardin,  of 
Essex,  and  Thomas  Flynn,  the  bright- witted  Passaic  Assembly- 
man, espoused  it,  and  the  majority  was  Democratic — it  went 
through. 

It  was  not  many  minutes  making  the  transit  to  the  Senate 
Chamber  for  concurrence.  The  last  day  of  the  session  had 
arrived,  and  the  hour  fixed  for  final  adjournment  was  at  hand. 
The  time  was  reached,  in  fact,  while  the  Senate  was  still  dis- 
cussing the  measure.  The  Assembly  waited  upon  it  till  the 
patience  of  the  members  gave  out,  and  Speaker  Bergen  announced 
that  the  Legislature  had  expired  by  limitation.  The  freed 
Assemblymen  marched  in  solemn  procession  over  the  hall  to  the 
Senate  Chamber,  in  pursuance  of  the  custom,  to  be  formally 
dismissed  with  the  Senators  to  their  homes.  They  found  the 
doors  locked  against  them.  Sergeant- at- Arms  Nathan  had  made 
up  his  mind  that  the  final  exercises  should  not  take  place  till  the 
pending  bill  had  gone  through.  The  impatient  Assemblymen 
rattled  the  knobs  and  tapped  and  knocked  for  admission,  and 
flattened  their  noses  against  the  frosted  glass  of  the  big  middle 
doors.     But  the  Senate's  Janissary  was  proof  against  all  their 


368  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

clamors,  and  the  bolt  lay  in  the  slot  while  the  Senate  proceede($ 
with  its  work.  The  roll  was  finally  called.  The  act  was- 
passed. 

Then  Nathan,  looking  like  a  Spanish  nobleman,  stepped  to 
the  middle  of  the  aisle  with  the  swollen  air  of  one  conscious  of 
a  duty  well  performed,  and  bowed  to  the  chair. 

"  Mistah  President,"  he  exclaimed  in  the  rich  bass  tone  that 
had  made  the  "  Heart  Bowed  Down  "  famous  in  the  annals  of 
song,  "  the  Speaker  and  the  House  of  Assembly  ! " 

Before  the  bolt  had  been  fairly  withdrawn,  the  great  folding- 
doors  burst  open,  and  in  Speaker  Bergen  and  his  colleagues 
bundled,  falling  over  one  another  in  their  eager  rush  for  place. 

President  Adrain  was  never  so  smiling  or  gracious  as  he- 
received  them  and  declared  the  session  at  an  end. 

The  plan  of  government,  local  and  State,  contemplated  by  thi» 
legislation,  spread  the  Hudson  county  odor  all  over  the  Com- 
monwealth. It  was  of  the  very  essence  of  the  scheme  that  the 
entire  local  machinery  everywhere  should  be  submissive  and  re- 
sponsive to  the  demands  of  the  central  power.  Self-respecting- 
men  of  force  and  character  would  not  lend  themselves  to  the 
servitude  which  the  holding  of  an  office,  however  high,  carried 
with  it.  Only  hirelings  who  could  be  bought  with  place  were  in 
requisition,  and  there  was  a  noticeable  decline,  as  the  shadow  of 
the  autocracy  spread  over  the  State,  in  the  public  morale.  The 
more  depraved  elements  came  to  the  surface  all  over.  Shining 
State  positions  were  filled  with  weak  satellites  of  the  bosses,  and 
the  control  of  the  cities  fell  into  the  hands  of  vicious  and  auda- 
cious gangs  of  plunderers.  Through  them  the  Governor's- 
personal  power  was  exerted  everywhere.  No  interest  was  too 
inconsiderable  nor  any  man  too  inconspicuous  to  be  made  to  feel 
the  weight  of  his  displeasure.  The  State  was  under  the  heels  of 
an  autocrat. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

Which  Tkeats  of  the  National  Guaed  akd  Shows  that  the  Re- 
organization Effected  in  1892  could  not  have 
been  a  Political  Move. 


ARTISANS,  of  one  side  or  the  other,  insisted  that  not 
even  the  State  militia  had  been  allowed  to  escape  ser- 
vice as  part  of  the  Governor's  political  machine.  Gen- 
eral Dudley  S.  Steele  was  Commander  of  the  First 
Brigade  of  the  National  Guard,  comprising  the  regimental  and 
battalion  formations  in  the  upper  section  of  the  State,  and  Gen- 
eral Sewell  was  at  the  head  of  the  Second  Brigade,  embracing 
the  regiments  at  the  Philadelphia  end  of  the  State.  While  one 
of  the  most  soldierly  of  soldiers.  General  Steele  was  one  of  the 
most  manly  of  men,  with  the  sauviter  in  modo  and  the  fortiter 
in  re  so  nicely  adjusted  in  his  make-up  that  one  dared  not  im- 
pose on  his  good  nature  on  the  one  hand,  nor  felt  it  a  servitude 
to  obey  on  the  other.  He  had  found  his  command  in  the  most 
satisfactory  order  when  he  took  hold,  and  had  striven  tirelessly 
to  maintain  its  military  standard.  In  this  he  was  as  successful 
as  the  then  constituted  organization  of  his  brigade  would  per- 
mit. In  the  midst  of  his  plans  for  the  future,  he  was  stricken 
with  a  fatal  illness.  His  constitution  had  not  been  robust  for 
some  time  prior  to  his  sickness.  A  cold  contracted  while  taking 
a  back- platform  ride,  in  the  early  spring  of  1892,  on  one  of  the 
new  trolley  cars  that  had  just  been  put  into  service  between 
Newark  and  East  Orange,  gave  his  illness  an  alarming  turn. 
After  weeks  of  patient  suiFering,  relieved  by  such  delicate 
ministrations  as  only  a  wife  can  bestow  upon  her  worshipped 
husband,  he  joined  the  silent  majority  on  March  12th,  and  was 
borne  by  his  comrades-in-arms  from  his  handsome  home  in  East 
Orange  to  his  grave. 

24  (369) 


370  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

General  Steele's  death  devolved  the  selection  of  a  new  Briga- 
dier-General upon  the  field  officers  connected  with  his  late  com- 
mand. Colonel  L.  R.  Barnard,  of  the  Fifth  Regiment  (New- 
ark), laid  claims  to  the  succession  by  right  of  his  seniority  in 
the  service.  The  soldierly  qualities  and  the  personal  popularity 
of  Colonel  Edward  A.  Campbell,  of  the  First  Regiment  (also 
Newark),  marked  him  out,  too,  as  an  available  man.  Colonel 
Peter  Farmer  Wanser,  of  the  Fourth  Regiment  (Jersey  City), 
had  risen  into  State  prominence  by  reason  of  his  election,  over  so 
conspicuous  a  citizen  as  Allan  L.  McDermott,  to  the  Mayoralty 
of  Jersey  City,  and  a  random  guess  was  made  by  his  friends  that 
he  would  be  the  choice  of  the  Board  of  Officers ;  but  he  had  no 
idea  at  the  time  of  seeking  the  position,  and  the  mention  of  his 
name  in  connection  with  it  was  wholly  without  his  procurement. 

Jersey  City  had  been,  theretofore,  an  entrenched  Democratic 
stronghold.  Its  capture  under  his  candidacy  by  the  Republicans 
gave  Colonel  Wanser  a  State- wide  prominence.  He  became  the 
hero  of  the  hour  in  his  party.  He  was  cheered  at  its  local  and 
State  conventions.  He  was  mentioned  for  Governor,  for  Mem- 
ber of  Congress,  for  everything  within  the  public  gift  anywhere, 
and,  naturally  enough,  his  name  was  on  everybody's  lips  when 
General  Steele's  death  made  a  vacancy  in  the  National  Guard 
into  which  he  might  step. 

Major-General  Joseph  W.  Plume  was  then  at  the  head  of  the 
State  Militia.  He  is  a  born  soldier.  The  military  instinct  is 
reflected  in  every  line  of  his  face,  and  in  every  movement  of  his 
stalwart  frame.  He  comes  of  a  family  whose  history  is  linked 
with  the  naval  and  Revolutionary  history  of  the  country.  Dr. 
William  Turk,  his  maternal  grandfather,  was  of  the  United 
States  Navy,  and  his  grandmother,  daughter  of  Captain  John 
W.  Livingston,  who  won  his  spurs  in  the  War  of  the  Revolu- 
tion and  who  in  his  turn  was  a  descendant  of  William  Living- 
ston, Governor  of  New  Jersey  during  the  whole  Revolutionary 
epoch.  An  ancestor  on  his  father's  side  was  of  the  Hendrick 
Hudson  party  that  in  1607  explored  the  upper  Hudson  river, 
and  afterwards  helped  to  organize  the  "  Colony  of  Van  Rens- 


Joseph  \V.  riumc 


372  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

saelaers  Wyck,"  the  nucleus  around  which  the  city  of  Albany 
has  grown. 

In  1857  the  General  attached  himself  to  the  City  Battalion 
of  Newark,  and  served  as  a  private,  till  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
Rebellion,  he  was  commissioned  Adjutant  of  the  Second  New 
Jersey  Volunteers.  Nine  months  later  he  became  an  Aid-de- 
Camp  on  the  staff  of  Brigadier-General  William  H.  French,  of 
Sumner's  Division ;  and,  three  months  further  on,  Acting 
Adjutant  General  of  the  same  Brigade;  and  three  months  later 
Acting  Adjutant-General  of  the  Third  Division  of  the  Second 
Corps.  He  resigned  in  December  to  become  Assistant  Adj  utant- 
Oeneral  with  the  rank  of  Major;  but  when  his  commission 
ranking  him  only  as  a  Captain  reached  him,  he  declined  to  accept 
it  and  retired  from  the  service.  Not,  however,  till  he  had  been 
in  a  number  of  important  engagements. 

In  November,  1863,  he  was  made  Major  and  Brigade  Inspec- 
tor of  the  National  Guard  of  New  Jersey.  United  States 
Senator  William  Wright  recommended  his  appointment  a  year 
later  as  a  First  Lieutenant  in  the  Regular  Army,  but  he  did  not 
wish  the  honor.  When  the  Thirty -seventh  Regiment  (New 
Jersey)  Volunteers  was  recruited  he  was  elected  its  Colonel,  but 
declined  to  serve  because  the  regiment  had  been  enlisted  for  only 
one  hundred  days.  On  July  6th,  1865,  he  was  commissioned 
Colonel  of  the  Second  Regiment,  New  Jersey  Rifle  Corps.  At 
that  time  the  military  organizations  of  the  State  were  organized 
and  known  as  the  New  Jersey  Rifle  Corps,  with  General  Theo- 
dore Runyon  in  command. 

General  Runyon  and  Colonel  Plume  drew  the  act  creating  the 
National  Guard  of  the  State  of  New  Jersey,  and  both  bent  all 
of  their  energies  to  securing  its  passage.  James  L.  Hays,  who 
was  representing  Essex  in  the  State  Senate  at  the  time,  chaper- 
oned the  bill  through  the  Legislature,  and  the  Rifle  Corps  were 
changed  into  the  National  Guard.  Colonel  Plume's  Second 
Regiment  of  Rifle  Corps  became  the  Second^^egiment  of  the 
new  Guards,  and  in  April,  1869,  he  was  commissioned  as  its 
commander.  The  formation  of  the  regiments  into  brigades 
followed  speedily,  and  a  month  later  he  was  made  a  Brigadier- 


MODERN   BA.TTLES  OF  TRENTON.  373 

General  and  given  command  of  the  First  Brigade.  General 
McClellan  ten  years  later  conferred  the  brevet  title  of  Major- 
General  upon  him,  and  in  1885  he  was  named  to  succeed  Mott 
as  the  Major- General  of  the  State  Militia. 

The  First  Brigade  at  the  time  of  General  Steele's  death 
consisted  of  one  regiment  of  seven  companies,  one  of  five,  two 
of  six,  three  battalions  of  three  companies  each,  and  one  Gatling 
gun  company.  The  regulation  regiment  of  the  day  required 
ten  companies  for  its  formation ;  the  ideal  company  embraced 
from  eighty  to  one  hundred  men.  The  State  laws  did  not  say 
how  many  companies  should  constitute  a  regiment,  but  fixed 
the  minimum  of  enlisted  men  in  a  company  at  fifty.  One  of 
the  regiments  in  the  brigade  had  but  five  companies ;  and  many 
of  the  companies  in  all  the  regiments  could  muster  but  a  little 
over  the  minimum  of  men.  General  Steele's  report  of  his  last 
State  Encampment,  which,  with  its  attractions  for  midsummer 
recreation,  serves  to  draw  the  largest  share  of  Guardsmen  to  the 
front,  showed  an  attendance,  in  the  thirty  four  companies,  of  only 
1,500  men.  That  was  scarcely  an  average  of  forty- five  men  to 
the  company.  Geneial  Plume  had  himself  been  at  the  head  of 
the  brigade  for  sixteen  years,  and  his  practical  experience  easily 
enabled  him  to  see  that  ao  attendance  of  1,500  men  at  an 
encampment  indicated  an  average  attendance  of  less  than  forty 
men  per  company  at  the  other  parades  and  drills. 

So,  even  on  the  baeis  of  General  Steele's  figures,  Major-Gen- 
eral Plume  saw  that  the  brigade  was  top-heavy  and  that  there 
was  an  absurd  proportion  of  officers  to  rank  and  file.  There 
were  84  regiinental  field  and  staff  officers,  21  to  each  of  the  4 
regiments;  57  battalion  field  and  statF officers,  19  to  each  of  the 
3  battalions;  99  company  officers,  3  to  each  of  the  33  com- 
panies, and  4  in  the  Gatling  gun  company.  This  total  of  244 
commissioned  officers  formed  the  proportion  of  one  commis- 
sioned officer  to  every  six  men  in  the  brigade.  In  addition  to 
these  commissioned  officered,  there  were  of  non-commissioned 
officers  5  sergeants,  5  corporals  and  2  musicians  for  each  of  the 
34  companies,  a  total  of  408.     These,  with  the  244  commissioned 


374  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 

ofiScerp,  made  a  grand  total  of  652  commissioned  and  non-com- 
missioned officers  in  the  force  of  1,500  men. 

This  proportion  of  more  than  two  officers  out  of  every  five 
men  in  the  brigade  made  its  re- organization  an  imperative  mili- 
tary duty ;  and  Governor  Green's  attention  had  been  called  to 
it  before  he  made  way  for  Governor  Abbett.  He  saw  the  neces- 
sity of  it,  but  he  deemed  it  better  to  postpone  it  till  the  new 
drill  regulations,  then  promised,  had  been  issued  by  the  General 
Government,  when  the  re- organization  could  and  would  be  made 
on  lines  to  conform  with  them.  Upon  the  accession  of  Governor 
Abbett  for  his  second  term,  attention  was  again  called  to  the 
matter,  and  it  was  his  judgment,  too,  that  it  had  better  be  in 
abeyance  till  the  Federal  Government  had  issued  its  anticipated 
mandate.  The  expected  order  did  not  come  from  the  Secretary 
of  War's  office  till  October  3d,  1891. 

The  order  read  as  follows  : 

"A  board  of  officers  having  prepared  a  system  of  drill  regu- 
lations for  infantry,  which  has  been  approved  by  the  President, 
it  is  herewith  published  for  the  information  and  government  of 
the  army,  and  for  the  observance  of  the  militia  of  the  United 
States." 

The  order  thus  prefaced  called  for  the  re-organization  of  the 
National  Guard  in  all  the  States,  on  the  battalion  rather  than  on 
the  regimental  basis,  or,  to  be  more  exact,  on  the  basis  of  regi- 
mental organizations  with  not  less  than  two  nor  more  than  three 
battalions  of  four  companies  each  ;  and,  as  it  was  not  formed  on 
lines  consistent  with  the  newly- established  system,  made  an 
overhauling  of  the  entire  National  Guard  of  New  Jersey 
imperative.  It  was  so  palpably  necessary  that  the  State  Mili- 
tary Board  made  preparations  for  the  changed  order  of  things, 
and  most  of  the  regimental  and  battalion  commandants  urged 
action.  A  specially  notable  letter  encouraging  the  move  was 
written  by  Colonel  Edwin  A.  Stevens,  of  Hoboken,  whose  regi- 
ment, the  Second,  was  afterwards  consolidated  with  other  com- 
mands. 

But  it  was  neither  necessary  nor  proper  that  the  new  lines 
should  be  conformed  to  till  the  new  drill  regulations  had  been 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  375 

formally  issued  by  the  War  Department.  There  was  some 
question  as  to  the  time,  and  the  State  military  authorities 
through  Adjutant- General  W.  S.  Stryker,  entered  into  negotia- 
tions with  the  Federal  authorities. 

"We  understand,"  he  wrote,  under  date  of  March  29th,  to 
the  Adjutant- General  of  the  United  States  Army,  "  that  the 
order  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  dated  October  3d,  1891,  which 
appears  in  front  of  the  new  drill  regulations  issued  by  the 
^Army  and  Navy  Journal,'  would  not  take  effect  until  the  regu- 
lations were  printed  and  issued  by  the  War  Department.  Has 
this  been  done,  and  are  we  to  understand  that  this  order  has 
been  promulgated  and  is  now  in  force  ?  " 

The  reply  from  Washington,  bearing  the  same  date,  was  as 
follows : 

"Respectfully  returned  to  General  W.  S.  Stryker,  Adjutant- 
General  of  N.  J.,  Trenton,  N.  J.,  with  a  copy  of  the  order 
requested  inclosed,  which  has  been  promulgated  and  is  now  in 
force.  The  system  of  drill  regulations  referred  to  in  the  order 
has  been  printed  and  distributed  to  the  army." 

On  receipt  of  this  letter  the  new  drill  regulations  were 
approved  by  the  State  Military  Board,  and  were  promulgated 
by  Major-General  Plume  to  the  National  Guard  of  New  Jersey 
in  this  order : 

HEADtiUARTERS    DlVISIOX, 

The  National  Guard  of  New  Jersey, 
Oenekal  Orders,  \  Newark,  April  2d,  1892. 

No,  3.  / 

The  New  Drill  Kegulations  for  Infantry,  prepared  by  a  board  of  officers  of 
the  United  States  Army,  of  which  board  Lieutenant  Colonel  John  C.  Bates, 
Twentieth  Infantry,  was  President,  having  been  approved  by  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  and  published  by  the  Secretary  of  War  for  the  observance 
of  the  militia  of  the  United  States,  are  hereby  designated  as  the  drill  regula- 
tions to  be  used  by  the  National  Guard  of  New  Jersey. 

All  infantry  exercises  and  maneuvers  not  embraced  in  that  system  are  pro- 
hibited, and  those  therein  prescribed  will  be  strictly  observed. 
By  command  of 

Major-General  JOSEPH  W.  PLUME. 
Marvin  Dodd, 

Assistant  Adjutant-General. 


376         MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


Having  promulgated  the  new  drill  regulations,  it  now 
became  General  Plume's  duty  to  arrange  the  re-organization  of 
the  new  brigades.  It  may  be  imagined  that  this  wag  not  an  easy 
task.  He  first  dealt  with  General  Sawell's  South  Jersey  brigade, 
and  re- organized  it  through  the  agency  of  General  Orders  No. 
6.  As  it  explains  just  what  was  done  there,  the  order  is  re- 
produced : 

Headquarters  Division, 
The  National  Guard  of  New  Jersey, 
General  Orders,  \  Newark,  April  19th,  1892. 

No.  6.  J 

I.  In  conformity  with  the  new  drill  regulations,  the  ''Battalion  formation" 
is  hereby  instituted  in  the  Second  Brigade. 

II.  The  Battalions  will  be  organized  as  follows  : 

Companies  A,  B,  F  and  G  of  the  Third  Regiment  will  constitute  the  First 
Battalion  of  that  Eegiment. 

Companies  C,  D,  E  and  H  of  the  Third  Eegiment  will  constitute  the  Second 
Battalion  of  that  Regiment. 

Companies  A,  B,  C  and  D  of  the  Sixth  Regiment  will  constitute  the  First 
Battalion  of  that  Regiment. 

Companies  E,  F,  H  and  K  of  the  Sixth  Regiment  will  constitute  the  Second 
Battalion  of  that  Regiment. 

Companies  A,  B,  C  and  D  of  the  Seventh  Regiment  will  constitute  the 
First  Battalion  of  that  Regiment. 

Companies  E,  F,  G  and  H  of  the  Seventh  Regiment  will  constitute  the 
Second  Battalion  of  that  Regiment. 

III.  One  Battalion  of  each  Regiment  will  be  commanded  by  the  Major  of 
the  Regiment,  and  the  other  Battalion  by  the  Senior  Captain  of  that  Battalion. 

IV.  Details  Avill  be  made  in  each  Battalion  of  one  First  Lieutenant  to  act 
as  Adjutant,  and  one  Sergeant  to  act  as  Sergeant-Major  of  their  respective 
Battalions. 

V.  The  Brigade  Commander  will  report  to  these  Headquarters  the  names 
of  the  oflScers  detailed. 

By  command  of 

Major-General  JOSEPH  W.  PLUME. 
official  : 

Marvin  Dodd, 

Assistant  Adjutant-General. 

The  military  problems  involved  in  the  re-organization  of  the 
First  Brigade  were  more  knotty  and  intricate,  but  General 
Steele's  death  enforced  the  necessity  for  action.  It  was  wise 
and  opportune  that  the  new  formation  should  be  made  before 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         377 

the  selection  of  his  successor;  else  the  new  brigade  might  go 
under  the  command  of  a  Brigadier  chosen  by  the  vote  of  a 
board  of  ofiScers  that  had  been  shuiiled  out  of  the  service  by 
the  change.  And  while  the  canvass  for  the  succession  was  still 
in  progress  General  Plume,  having  perfected  his  plans  for  its  re- 
organization, issued,  on  May  7th,  1892,  General  Orders  No.  7, 
Headquarters  N.  G.  N.  J.,  that  brought  it  about.  As  in  the 
case  of  the  order  re-arranging  the  Second  Brigade,  this  order 
itself  explains  the  lines  on  which  the  First  Brigade  was  re- 
organized, and  is  reproduced  in  full.     It  reads  as  follows : 

Headquarters  Division, 
The  National  Guard  of  New  Jersey, 
General  Orders,  \  Newark,  May  21st,  1892. 

No.  7.  / 

The  following  re-organization  of  the  First  Brigade  is  hereby  ordered,  pre- 
paratory to  the  "  Battalion  formation,"  to  take  effect  on  Tuesday,  the  31st  day 
of  May,  instant. 

I.  Company  F,  First  Kegiment,  is  hereby  consolidated  into  Company  C, 
First  Regiment.  Company  D,  Fifth  Regiment,  is  hereby  consolidated  into 
Company  G,  Fifth  Regiment.  Company  F,  Fifth  Regiment,  is  hereby  consoli- 
dated into  Company  H,  Fifth  Regiment. 

Commandants  of  Company  C,  First  Regiment,  and  Companies  G  and  H, 
Fifth  Regiment,  will  select  eighty  of  the  best  enlisted  men  of  their  respective 
companies  after  consolidation,  and  return  the  remainder,  through  the  proper 
channels,  for  honorable  discharge. 

II.  Companies  A,  B,  C,  D  and  E,  First  Regiment ;  Companies  C,  E,  G  and 
H,  Fifth  Regiment,  and  the  Third  Battalion,  are  hereby  consolidated  into  one 
regiment. 

III.  The  Second  and  Fourth  Regiments  are  hereby  consolidated  into  one 
regiment. 

IV.  The  First  and  Second  Battalions,  Company  G,  First  Regiment,  and 
Company  B,  Fourth  Regiment,  are  hereby  consolidated  into  one  regiment. 

V.  The  numerical  designation  of  the  new  regiments  above  created  will  be 
announced  by  the  Adjutant-General. 

VI.  All  Field  and  Staff  officers,  and  the  officers  of  Company  F,  First 
Kegiment,  and  Companies  D  and  F,  Fifth  Regiment,  except  the  Brigade  Staff, 
will  be  placed  upon  the  retired  list  by  the  Adjutant-General. 

All  Non-commissioned  Staff  ofiScers,  except  the  Brigade  Non-commissioned 
Staff,  will  be  honorably  discharged. 

VII.  Should  any  of  the  Field  and  Staff  officers,  who  have  been  retired  by 
this  order,  be  elected  or  appointed  to  their  former  offices,  they  will  be  com- 
missioned to  take  rank  from  the  date  as  given  in  their  former  commissions. 


378  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

Should  any  of  the  Non-commissioned  Staff  officers,  who  have  been  honor- 
ably discharged  by  this  order,  be  appointed  to  their  former  offices,  they  will 
be  warranted  under  the  date  of  their  prior  warrants. 

VIII.  Any  commissioned  officer,  who  has  been  retired  by  this  order,  and 
not  re-elected  or  re-appointed  to  his  fermer  office,  who  has  faithfully  served 
as  a  commissioned  officer  over  fourteen  years,  will  be  retired  with  a  brevet 
rank  and  commission  of  not  more  than  one  grade  higher  than  the  highest  rank 
held  by  him  during  his  term  of  service. 

IX.  Paymasters  will  at  once  turn  over  to  the  Paymaster  of  the  Brigade  all 
moneys  remaining  in  their  hands,  in  compliance  with  Par.  109  of  the  new 
compilation  of  the  laws  governing  the  National  Guard. 

X.  Quartermasters  will  retain  possession  of  the  property  for  which  they  are 
responsible  until  the  Quartermaster  of  the  new  regiment  into  which  their 
organization  has  been  consolidated,  is  appointed,  when  they  will  turn  over  to 
him  all  the  property,  taking  duplicate  receipts  for  the  same,  and  forwarding 
one  of  the  receipts  to  the  Quartermaster-General. 

XI.  Senior  Captains  will  at  once  assume  command  of  their  respective  regi- 
ments, and  will  retain  the  same  until  a  field  officer  has  been  elected  and  com- 
missioned. They  will  also  detail  a  Lieutenant  to  act  as  Adjutant  until  an 
Adjutant  has  been  appointed  and  commissioned. 

By  command  of 

Major-General  JOSEPH   W.  PLUME. 
Marvin  Dodd, 

Assistant  Adjutant- General. 

Colonel  Barnard,  whose  Fifth  Regiment  was  consolidated  out 
of  existence  under  the  new  dispensation,  failed  to  take  it  philo- 
sophically. He  claimed  that  it  was  a  move  on  the  part  of  the 
Democratic  Major-General  to  put  him  out  of  commission  and 
defeat  his  election  to  General  Steele's  place,  because  he  was  a 
Republican,  and  he  made  an  appeal  to  Governor  Abbett  on  the 
ground  that  General  Plume  had  no  right  to  issue  the  order. 
The  Governor  called  upon  the  Major-General  for  a  written 
report,  showing  what  action  he  had  taken  in  the  matter.  Gen- 
eral Plume  made  an  exhaustive  response.  This  was  referred  to 
Attorney- General  Stockton  for  an  examination  of  the  legal  ques- 
tions involved  in  the  controversy. 

"I  read  your  report  to  the  Attorney-General,"  Adjutant- 
General  Stryker  wrote  to  the  Major-General  some  time  subse- 
quently. "  He  said  you  were  correct  in  every  point  you  made. 
He  complimented  you  highly  on  the  argument  and  said  he  would 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  379 

say  to  the  Governor  this  morning  that  there  was  no  question 
that  the  power  existed  as  stated  by  you." 

The  appeal  of  Colonel  Barnard  to  the  Governor  led,  however, 
to  the  discovery  by  the  Major-General  of  a  clerical  error  in  the 
inspection-roll  of  Company  F,  Fifth  Regiment,  that  was  trifling 
in  itself  but  important  in  its  consequences,  because  it  forced  a 
new  re-organization  of  the  brigade.  The  error  had  made  it 
appear  that  Company  F  was  one  short  of  the  minimum  comple- 
ment of  men.  A  more  careful  inspection  of  the  roll  showed 
that  it  had  the  complement  and  a  man  to  spare.  Its  consolida- 
tion with  other  companies  was  consequently  improper,  and  there- 
fore General  Orders  No.  9,  Headquarters  N.  G.  N.  J.,  June  8th, 
1892,  correcting  the  error  and  making  such  other  changes  in 
General  Orders  No.  7  as  the  reinstatement  of  that  company 
made  necessary,  was  as  follows  : 

Headquarters  Division, 
The  National  Guard  of  New  Jersey, 
General  Orders,  |  Newark,  June  8th,  1892. 

No.  9.  i 

General  Orders,  No.  7,  from  these  Headquarters,  dated  May  21st,  1892,  are 
hereby  amended  as  follows : 

I.  Paragraphs  1,  2,  4  and  6  are  hereby  rescinded. 

II.  Company  D,  late  Fifth  Kegiment,  is  hereby  consolidated  into  the 
remaining  companies  of  the  late  Fifth  Regiment. 

In  making  this  consolidation  each  member  of  Company  D  will  be  per- 
mitted, as  far  as  possible,  to  select  the  company  into  which  he  will  be 
consolidated. 

III.  The  late  First  Eegiment  and  Companies  C,  E,  F,  G  and  H,  late  Fifth 
Regiment,  are  hereby  consolidated  into  one  regiment. 

IV.  The  late  First,  Second  and  Third  Battalions  and  Company  B,  late 
Fourth  Regiment,  are  hereby  consolidated  into  one  regiment. 

V.  All  Field  and  Staff  officers,  and  the  officers  of  Company  D,  late  Fifth 
Regiment,  except  the  Brigade  Staff,  will  be  placed  upon  the  retired  list  by  the 
Adjutant-General. 

All  Non-commissioned  Staff  officers,  except  the  Brigade  Non-commissioned 
Staff,  will  be  honorably  discharged. 

By  command  of 

Major-General  JOSEPH  W.  PLUME. 
official  : 

Marvin  Dodd, 

Assistant  Adjutant-General. 


380         MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON. 

The  issuing  of  the  latter  order  was  an  unwelcome  duty  to 
the  Major-General,  and  was  deeply  regretted  by  the  other  mem- 
bers of  the  State  Military  Board,  because  the  organization  called 
for  in  General  Orders  No.  7  was  far  better  in  every  particular 
and  strictly  in  conformity  with  their  judgment,  and  they  have 
taken  every  opportunity  to  express  their  regret  at  the  necessity 
which  compelled  it.* 

It  had  become  more  or  less  apparent,  before  either  of  the 
First  Brigade  re-organization  orders  was  made,  that  Colonel 
Barnard  was  less  acceptable  as  a  candidate  than  Colonel  Camp- 
bell was,  and  his  chances  of  success  had  been  further  weakened 
by  the  understanding  that  the  more  conspicuous  Republican, 
Colonel  Wanser,  was  willing  to  accept  the  responsibilities  of  the 
place.  In  the  bitterness  of  the  partisan  spirit  of  the  times,  it 
was  said  that  Governor  Abbett  had  inspired  the  re-organization 
with  the  belief  that  Wanser  might  be  in  the  rivalry  and  for  the 
purpose  of  defeating  him.  The  closeness  of  the  relations 
existing  between  Allan  L.  McDermott,  whom  Wanser  had 
defeated  in  the  Mayoralty  contest,  and  the  Governor,  were 
known  of  all  men,  and  it  was  suspected  that  he  had  planned  the 
re-organization  as  a  reprisal.  The  stoiy  of  this  chapter  shows, 
however,  that  the  movement  was  the  logical  sequence  of  mili- 
tary conditions  and  requirements  without  any  relation  to  poli- 
tics. The  re- organization  plan  served,  indeed,  to  take  from 
Campbell,  who  was  the  only  candidate  left  in  the  field  against 
Wanser,  part  of  the  support  he  had  expected  in  the  close  battle 
Colonel  Wanser  was  giving  him. 

After  an  exciting  contest  the  election  was  finally  held,  in  pur- 
suance of  an  order  issued  by  the  Major-General,  and  Colonel 

*  Previous  to  the  execution  of  the  above  orders  the  First  Brigade  organiza- 
tion was  as  follows : 

First  Regiment,  seven  companies ;  Second,  five  companies ;  Fourth,  six 
companies ;  Fifth,  six  companies ;  First  Battalion,  three  companies ;  Second, 
three  companies ;  Third,  three  companies ;  Gatling  Gun  Company,  one  com- 
pany. 

After  the  execution  of  the  orders  it  stood.  First  Eegiment,  twelve  com- 
panies ;  Second,  ten  companies,  two  vacancies ;  Fourth,  eleven  companies,  one 
vacancy;  Gatling  Gun  Company,  one  company. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  381 

Wanser  was  chosen  Brigadier-General  by  a  vote  of  five  to  four, 
shortly  after  he  had  assumed  the  Mayoralty  of  Jersey  City. 

It  still  suited  the  purpose  of  those  who  had  been  displaced 
by  the  re-organization  to  insist  that  it  had  been  effected 
upon  political  lines,  and  three  years  later  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Erlenkotter,  of  Hoboken,  who  had  become  a  member  of  the 
Legislature,  offered  a  resolution  in  the  House  demanding  an 
investigation.  General  Plume  met  the  demand  with  his  own 
request  for  a  thorough  inquiry ;  and  a  Court  of  Inquiry,  con- 
sisting of  General  Bird  W.  Spencer,  General  Wm.  C.  Heppen- 
heimer  and  General  Edward  P.  Meany,  was  appointed  by  Gov- 
ernor Werts.  At  the  hearing  Colonel  Stevens,  of  Hoboken, 
who  had  failed  to  secure  a  rank  in  the  new  brigade,  was  the 
chief  apparent  sponsor  for  the  charges.  Colonel  Barnard, 
chagrined  because  of  his  failure  to  reach  the  Brigadier- General's 
place,  was  active  in  forwarding  evidence.  The  Hoboken  com- 
panies of  the  Fourth  Regiment  had  given  trouble  because  of 
the  election  of  H.  H.  Abernethy  to  the  Colonelcy  of  the  Fourth 
Regiment  to  which  they  had  been  attached,  and  the  Major- Gen- 
eral had  disbanded  them  after  they  had  repeatedly  refused  to  re- 
spond to  orders.  Because  he  was  a  Hoboken  man.  Colonel  Stevens 
was  particularly  interested  in  that  phase  of  the  controversy. 

General  Plume  met  the  attack  with  the  history  of  the  re- organi- 
zation as  it  has  been  unfolded  here  and  the  hearing  resulted  in 
his  triumphant  vindication. 

Adj  utant-General  William  8.  Stryker,  in  General  Orders  No. 
14,  reported  the  finding  of  the  court  and  its  approval  by  the 
Governor.     The  court  found,  in  the  words  of  the  order — 

"That  General  Orders  No.  7,  May  21st,  1892,  and  General  Orders  No.  9, 
June  8th,  1892,  issued  by  Major-General  Joseph  W.  Plume,  providing  for  the 
re-organization  of  the  First  Brigade,  National  Guard,  were  issued  by  General 
Plume  in  pursuance  of  the  orders  by  him  received  from  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  National  Guard  of  the  State  of  New  Jersey; 

"  That  the  action  of  Major-General  Joseph  W.  Plume,  in  disbanding  Com- 
panies G,  H,  I,  K  and  L,  Fourth  Regiment,  First  Brigade,  National  Guard, 
was  taken  after  the  Colonel  commanding  the  said  Fourth  Regiment  had 
oflBcially  reported  that  said  companies  were  in  a  state  of  mutiny,  and  requested 


382  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TREXTON. 


that  said  companies  be  disbanded.  This  request  of  the  Colonel  commanding 
said  regiment  was  approved  by  the  Brigadier-General  commanding  the  First 
Brigade ; 

"Tliat  Major-General  Joseph  W.  Plume,  by  Special  Orders  No.  4,  June 
10th,  1892,  did  order  an  election  to  be  held  for  field  officers  of  the  Fir^t  Regi- 
ment, National  Guard,  and  detailed  an  officer  of  the  National  Guard  to  hold 
such  election.  This  order  was  issued  by  General  Plume,  owing  to  the  fact 
that,  at  the  time  of  the  issuance  of  said  order,  the  First  Brigade  was  without 
a  permanent  commander; 

"That  Major  General  Josepli  W.  Plume  has  not  been  guilty  of  unmilitary 
conduct  toward  the  officers  and  men  of  Companies  G,  H,  I,  K  and  L,  Fourth 
Eegiment,  National  Guard ; 

"That  Major-General  Joseph  W.  Plume,  by  all  his  actions  in  connection 
witli  the  subject  of  this  inquiry,  has  shown  himself  to  be  an  officer  eminently 
well  qualified  for  the  command  he  now  holds." 

And  in  the  form  of  a  second  announcement  the  Governor 
declared  that  "  the  report  of  the  Court  of  Inquiry  in  the  case 
of  Major-General  Joseph  W.  Plume  is  approved." 


CHAPTER    XXXI 


The  Stohy   of  the  First  of  the  Race-Track   Excitements  and   of 

THE  Birth  of  the  Anti-Race-Track  League  is 

Detailed  Herein. 


UCH  dictatorships  as  that  which  the  Governor  had  estab- 
lished over  the  people  are  apt  to  rest  upon  reeds  after 
all ;  and  this  of  Mr.  Abbett's  proved  to  be  a  picturesque 
illustration  of  the  rule.  The  head  of  a  despotism  rest- 
ing upon  the  fealty  of  subordinates  is,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
forced  to  buy  his  peace  with  them  only  with  costly  concessions 
to  them.  Governor  Abbett's  lieutenants  and  underlings  would 
have  been  far  less  shrewd  than  they  were  if  they  had  not  seen 
that  his  power  was  really  theirs ;  and  they  made  him  pay  well 
for  their  loyalty.  They  made  demands  upon  him  for  legislation 
representing  all  kinds  of  excesses,  extravagances,  oppressions 
and  corruptions,  that  must  have  irritated  his  conscience  into  a 
state  of  constant  rebellion.  To  keep  himself  in  favor  with  the 
crowd  whom  he  had  called  to  his  aid  in  working  out  the  sena- 
torial problem  before  him,  he  was,  neverthless,  forced  to  yield 
to  every  importunity,  to  wink  at  every  extravagance,  to  close 
his  eye  to  every  corruption  of  theirs.  To  refuse  to  approve  was 
but  to  create  an  enmity  that  might  drive  some  one  of  its  hireling 
props  to  step  from  under  his  dynasty  and  to  have  it  tumble 
about  his  ears. 

The  race-track  question  provoked  an  agitation  in  1891  that 
shook  the  autocracy  from  center  to  circumference.  The  Mon- 
mouth race-course  that,  with  its  midsummer  meets,  made  Long 
Branch  and  the  seacoast  resorts  that  surrounded  it  the  gayest  of 
summer  capitals,  had  half  reconciled  the  State  to  a  little  stretch 
of  conscience  in  its  behalf,  and  little  freaks  of  legislation  that 

(383) 


384  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

were  occasionally  indulged  in  to  aid  it  had  provoked  no  wide- 
spread revolt.  But  it  was  with  manifest  concern  that  the  people 
saw  less  favored  courses  opened  under  the  shelter  of  these  laws  j 
and  their  indignation  swelled  beyond  bounds  over  the  establish- 
ment of  resorts  at  either  end  of  the  State  where  the  horse  and 
the  paddock  were  but  covers  for  open  gambling.  One  of  these 
was  that  maintained  at  Gloucester  City,  a  suburb  of  Camden, 
under  the  supervision  of  William  J.  Thompson.  The  other 
was  located  at  Guttenberg,  one  of  the  little  Hudson  river  towns 
in  Hudson  county,  and  directly  opposite  New  York.  Thompson 
had  been  a  barkeeper  in  Philadelphia.  He  was  keen  and 
shrewd,  and  he  hoarded  his  earnings  till  he  had  amassed  enough 
for  the  purchase  of  a  tract  of  land  on  the  Camden  front  of 
the  Delaware  opposite  Philadelphia.  This  he  turned  into  a 
pleasure  ground,  and  it  became  a  popular  trysting  place  on  Sun- 
days for  the  Philadelphia  beer-drinkers  who  found  the  bars  of 
their  own  town  closed  against  them.  Thompson  became  famous, 
locally,  for  the  planked  shad  spreads  he  provided  there ;  and  he 
brought  himself  into  the  notice  of  the  public  men  of  the  State 
by  inviting  them  to  banquets  in  which  the  planked  shad  was  the 
choice  feature  of  the  menu.  As  his  wealth  accumulated  he  ex- 
tended his  domain.  He  purchased  water  rights  for  the  fishing 
privileges  they  included,  and,  looking  inland,  spread  his  posses- 
sions over  a  vast  acreage  of  territory.  Upon  the  lands  he  built 
stables  and  had  a  track  graded,  and  horse-racing  went  on  there 
the  year  around.  Enormous  rabbles  of  unsightly-looking  sports 
gathered  at  them  to  bet  and  gamble ;  and  from  the  gate  receipts 
and  the  sale  of  privileges  to  the  "  bookmakers  "  he,  in  the  course 
of  a  few  years,  amassed  a  seven- figure  fortune. 

Dennis  McLaughlin  was  the  moving  spirit  in  the  track  at 
Guttenberg.  He  associated  John  Carr,  who  had  once  been  a 
Justice  of  the  Peace  in  the  neighborhood  where  he  was  most 
potential,  Nicholas  V.  Crusius,  a  blubber-like  sport  of  Hoboken, 
and  one  Walbaum,  known  well  to  all  the  bookmakers  of  New 
York,  with  him.  They  four  laid  out  a  patch  of  land  near  the 
brow  of  the  Palisades  as  a  race- track,  and  another  horde  of  ill- 
favored  betting  men  and  women  flocked  to  it  to  help  make  them 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 


385- 


ricb.  It  was  common  report  that  they  divided  $4,000  a  day 
between  them,  and  as  the  racing  season  was  quite  as  endless  a 
one  there  as  that  at  Gloucester  City,  their  annual  income  from 
the  place  was  something  enormous. 

The  opening  of  these  resorts  to  the  kind  of  people  who  patro- 
nized them  served  to  start  an  inquiry,  in  public  quarters,  into 
the  gambling  laws  of  the  State,  and  the  result  was  the  with- 
drawal of  all  the 
legislative  counte- 
nance that  had  been 
extended  to  pool- 
selling  and  race- 
track betting  for  the 
protection  of  the 
midsummer  meets 
at  Monmouth.  New 
Jersey  was  willing 
to  lose  Monmouth 
if  she  must  have 
Guttenberg  and 
Gloucester  City  as 
complements  of  it. 
But  by  a  perversity 
of  fortune  the  only 
track  that  was  hurt 
by  the  repeal  of 
these  favoring  laws 
was  the  one  that  the 
people  were  half 
willing  to  see  open. 
It  had  no  repressive  effect  whatever  upon  the  more  obnoxious 
places  that  had  sprung  up  under  its  shadow.  The  good  people  of 
Camden  frequently  hauled  Thompson  to  the  bar  of  justice;  but 
Judge  Hugg,  the  magistrate  before  whom  he  was  arraigned,  owed 
his  place  to  Thompson's  influence,  and  he  was  let  go  with  a  light 
fine  as  often  as  he  was  arraigned.  The  attempt  to  punish  the 
managers  of  the  Guttenberg  track  did  not  even  reach  the  point 

25 


William  J.  Thbmpson. 


586  MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON. 

of  arraignment.  The  business  of  that  resort  was  one  of  the 
highly-protected  industries  of  Hudson  county.  Sheriff  Davis's 
grand  juries  set  their  face  resolutely  against  their  indictment, 
no  matter  how  convincing  and  conclusive  the  evidence  presented 
against  them.  Rev.  John  L.  Scudder,  a  bright  and  public- 
spirited  young  minister,  who  had  then  recently  been  called  to  the 
pulpit  of  the  Tabernacle  Congregational  Church,  in  Jersey  City, 
organized  frequent  raids  upon  the  place  and  produced  no  end  of 
witnesses  before  the  grand  jury;  but  their  testimony  went  for 
nothing.  One  of  the  particular  functions  of  the  grand  juries 
seemed  to  be  to  close  their  ears  to  all  that  might  be  said  against 
the  Guttenberg  den.  And  so  the  trial  and  conviction  by  the 
<50urts  of  the  managers  and  their  aides  was  systematically  frus- 
trated. No  amount  of  coaxing  or  denunciation  on  the  part  of 
Judge  Manning  M.  Knapp  could  stir  these  forsworn  inquisi- 
tors to  the  discharge  of  their  duty  in  the  premises,  and  they 
were  so  brazen  and  defiant — both  the  gamblers  and  the  grand 
juries  who  shielded  them  from  the  terrors  of  the  law — that  the 
classic-featured  Judge  grew  restive  under  the  sense  of  his  help- 
lessness as  a  public  mentor,  and  one  morning  while  denouncing 
a  contumacious  grand  jury  in  burning  words  for  the  shame  its 
inactivity  was  bringing  upon  the  county,  he  burst  a  blood- 
vessel in  a  moment  of  overwhelming  indignation,  and  expired 
on  his  Bench  under  the  eyes  of  the  people  whom  he  was  so 
zealously  endeavoring  to  serve. 

For  anyone  to  face  such  discouraging  conditions  as  these  with 
an  act  restoring  her  lost  privileges  to  Monmouth  Park,  needed 
an  audacity  that  had  a  dash  of  courage  in  it.  Assemblyman 
William  T.  Parker,  a  Monmouth  county  Republican,  ventured  to 
do  it  during  the  legislative  session  of  1890,  with  an  act  taking 
the  race-course  betting- booths  out  of  the  category  of  disorderly 
houses.  The  Monmouth  course  was  in  his  district.  It  brought 
wealth  and  patronage  to  the  farmers  and  tradesmen  in  its  vicinity, 
and  he  felt  that  he  was  but  fairly  representing  his  people  in 
moving  for  the  re-opening  of  the  closed  gates.  He  succeeded 
in  forcing  the  act  through,  and  it  was  among  those  left  in  the 
Governor's  hands  at  the  close  of  the  session.     It  attracted  but 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  387 

little  attention  till  one  day,  near  the  end  of  the  time  for  which 
he  could  consider  passed  bills,  the  Governor  dropped  a  hint  in 
the  newspapers  that,  while  the  people  interested  in  the  race- 
tracks had  besieged  him  to  approve  the  bill,  not  a  single  man 
opposed  to  it  bad  called  upon  him. 

"A  race-track  that  had  been  laid  out  at  Linden,  near  Elizabeth, 
awaited  jast  such  a  license  as  this  act  of  Parker's  conferred," 
said  the  venerable  Rev.  Dr.  Kempshall,  an  aggressive  Presby- 
terian divine  of  Elizabeth,  "  and  the  moment  we  saw  that  little 
notice  in  the  newspapers  that  Saturday  morning  our  people  were 
thrown  into  a  ferment  of  excitement.  Before  I  began  the 
morning  services  at  my  church  the  next  day,  we  organized  a 
little  committee  and  sent  a  man  to  the  door  of  each  other  church 
in  the  city  to  summon  the  people  to  attend  an  impromptu  mass 
meeting  for  the  expression  of  the  public  sentiment  against  this 
race-track  license  act.  We  had  to  move  quickly  because  the 
time  was  short ;  only  three  days  remained  for  the  Governor  to 
make  up  his  mind  as  to  what  he  would  do  with  the  bill.  That 
Sunday  morning  meeting  of  ours  was  the  nucleus  of  the  Anti- 
Race-Track  League  of  the  State.  The  hasty  mass  meeting  was 
an  enormous  success  and  on  Monday  we  poured  into  Trenton 
such  a  delegation  of  protesticg  citizens  that  the  Governor  con- 
cluded that  he  could  not  afford  to  ignore  them.  When  they 
learned  what  we  had  done,  churches  in  other  cities  joined  in  the 
demonstration  and  committees  from  them  helped  to  swell  the 
multitude.  Before  we  left  the  Executive  Chamber  Monday 
afternoon,  we  had  completed  the  organization  of  the  Anti-Race- 
Track  League  that  for  four  years  afterwards  made  such  a  bitter 
contest  against  State  recognition  of  the  gamblers  and  touts  of 
the  race-courses." 

Rev.  Dr.  Kempshall  was  made  the  President  of  the  League, 
with  a  list  of  officers  embracing  John  T.  Brown  of  Paterson, 
S.  S.  Thompson  of  Elizabeth  and  James  S.  Yard  of  Freehold 
for  Vice  Presidents ;  Rev.  S.  B.  Meeser  of  Paterson  for  Secre- 
tary and  Treasurer,  and  Thomas  N.  McCarter  of  Newark,  Caleb 
T.  Bailey  of  Asbury  Park,  Charles  C.  McBride  of  Elizabeth, 
and  Frank  Huo-hes  of  Paterson  as  an  Executive  Committee. 


388  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

They  selected  of  their  number  to  urge  Governor  Abbett  to- 
refuse  his  signature  to  the  act  a  delegation  consisting  of  Rev. 
Dean  McNulty  of  Paterson,  Rev.  J.  H.  Whitehead,  J.  J.  Bowes^ 
Frank  Hughes,  W.  O.  Fayerweather,  Rev.  C.  L.  Meriam,  Rev. 
S.  B.  Meeser,  Samuel  Phelps,  James  M.  Cleveland,  Rev.  J.  C. 
Jackson  and  John  Reynolds,  all  of  Passaic  county ;  Rev.  N. 
McAllister,  Howard  Richards,  C.  C.  Taintor,  C.  C.  McBride^ 
J.  M.  Watson,  Charles  Jaquette,  Rev.  E.  W.  Burr,  all  of  Union 
county ;  Rev.  C.  Martin  of  Mooreetown,  Rev.  Charles  P.  Glover 
of  Ewing,  Rev.  Dr.  John  Dixon,  Rev.  C.  M.  Aurand  and  Rev. 
H.  Woolverton  of  Tienton,  and  Rev.  D.  B.  Hains,  S.  C.  Cowart 
and  James  S.  Yard  of  Freehold. 

When  he  had  heard  both  sides,  and  all  sides,  Governor  Abbett 
felt  that  an  approval  of  the  bill  would  be  an  offense  to  the  moral 
sense  of  the  State  that  he  could  not  risk,  and  he  filed  it  away,, 
with  a  lot  of  other  waste  of  the  session,  in  the  State  Library. 
The  racing  men  were  wroth  at  this  disposal  of  the  measure  by 
which  they  had  set  so  much  store,  and  their  open  threat  to  square 
accounts  with  him  was  the  first  shock  that  menaced  the  solidity 
of  his  autocracy. 

During  the  agitation  it  came  to  the  knowledge  of  Rev.  Dr. 
Kempshall  that  the  good  Dr.  Joseph  B.  Roe,  who  represented 
Gloucester  in  the  Slate  Senate,  and  whose  vote  had  aided  to  put 
the  bill  through  the  Senate,  was  a  conspicuous  churchman — 
deacon,  in  fact,  of  a  church  of  the  same  denomination  with  that 
to  which  Dr.  Kempshall  belonged.  Dr.  Kempshall  thought 
that  that  was  an  awful  thing  for  a  Presbyterian  deacon  to  be 
doing,  and  when  the  Synod  met  a  month  or  two  later  he  called 
the  case  to  its  attention  and  proposed  that  the  good  doctor  should 
be  disciplined.  The  passage  of  the  Race-track  bill  was  de- 
nounced by  resolution,  and  Dr.  Roe  was  inferentially  discredited. 
His  term  in  the  Senate  expired  that  fall,  and  when  he  stood  for 
re-election  not  even  the  admirable  record  he  made  later  in  the 
year  in  connection  with  the  Hudson  county  ballot-box  fraud 
investigation  was  sufficient  to  save  him  from  defeat. 


CHAPTER   XXXII. 

Which  Kecounts  the  Story  of  the  Coal  Combine  and  of  its  Dis- 
memberment BY  Chancellor  McGill,  and  Incidentally  Exhibits 
its  Bearing  upon  Governor  Abbett's  Senatorial  Canvass. 


SESSION  of  1892  furnished  another  incident  that 
shadowed  Governor  Abbett's  power  even  more  seri- 
ously. The  race- track  legislation  had  apparently  left 
no  trace  of  its  antagonisms  behind  it.  Parker  was 
returned  to  his  seat  from  Monmouth  by  an  increased  majority. 
Every  one  of  the  seven  districts  from  which  a  new  Senator  was 
to  be  chosen  elected  a  Democrat,  and  the  Democrats  won  the 
Legislature  in  both  branches  by  almost  unwieldy  majorities. 
They  were  a  reckless  crowd — the  personal  followers  and  depend- 
ents of  the  bosses — and  before  the  session  was  over  they  had 
been  betrayed  into  giving  the  sanction  of  law  to  a  grasping  rail- 
road combination,  which  became  famous  as  the  "  Coal  Combine." 
This  consolidation  of  the  largest  of  the  railroads  that  handle 
the  coal  output  of  the  anthracite  region,  with  a  view  to  "  bear- 
ing" the  New  York  market  and  "jacking  up"  the  price  of  the 
product,  became  a  scandal.  The  combination  was  of  special 
interest  to  New  Jersey  householders  and  factory-owners  because 
it  is  mainly  from  those  extensive  coal-beds  in  Pennsylvania  that 
their  hearth- stones  and  furnaces  are  supplied.  The  story  of  the 
combination  is  admirably  outlined  in  a  decision  subsequently 
made  by  Chancellor  MtGill,  and  it  is  from  that  decision  (reported 
in  5  Dickinson's  Equity  Reports)  that  the  facts  here  produced 
are  taken. 

The  coal  reaches  New  York  from  these  mines  over  several 
lines — the  New  Jersey  Central  in  conjunction  with  the  Lehigh 
and  Susquehanna,  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  Lehigh  Valley,  the  Delaware,  Lackawanna  and 

(389) 


390  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

Western,  the  Delaware  and  Hudson  Canal  and  the  Pennsyl- 
vania. The  coal  business  of  the  Jersey  Central  and  its  ally, 
the  Lehigh  and  Susquehanna,  was  conducted  by  capitalists  inter- 
ested in  the  two  roads  under  the  name  of  the  Lehigh  and 
Wilkesbarre  Coal  Company.  That  of  the  Philadelphia  and 
Reading  was  done  under  the  guise  of  another  corporation  known 
as  the  Reading  Coal  Company.  The  Philadelphia  and  Reading 
boasted  of  a  production  in  1891  of  8,203,460  tons  of  coal,  and 
in  its  prospectus  claimed  that,  when  allowance  was  made  for  the 
thickness  of  the  veins  and  the  extent  to  which  other  coal-beds 
had  been  depleted,  it  alone  owned  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  unmined 
deposit  of  all  these  extensive  coal-fields.  Its  outlet  to  New 
York  was  the  Lehigh  Valley  Railroad  Company.  The  Jersey 
Central's  lessee,  the  Lehigh  and  Susquehanna,  controlled,  through 
the  Lehigh  and  Wilkesbarre  Coal  Company,  another  large  area 
of  coal- land.  Its  proportion  of  the  entire  output  of  the  region 
could  not  have  been  less  than  twenty  per  cent.,  and  Chancellor 
McGill's  conclusion  that  between  them  seventy  per  cent,  of  all 
the  coal  in  the  anthracite  mines  was  at  their  disposal  may  be 
regarded  as  a  conservative  one. 

It  can  easily  be  seen  that  a  combination  between  these  roads,, 
with  their  auxiliary  mining  companies,  to  go  jointly  into 
the  business  of  mining  coal,  would  enable  them  to  produce  for 
less  and  sell  for  more,  and  steps  were  taken  in  1891  to  form 
such  an  alliance.  There  were  intimations  that  the  Delaware, 
Lackawanna  and  Western  Railroad  Company  and  the  Delaware 
and  Hudson  Canal  Company  were  eventually  to  join  the  league, 
and  the  movement  had  the  aspect  of  an  ultimate  combination  of 
the  five  other  anthracite  coal  roads  against  the  Pennsylvania. 
Such  an  alliance  must  needs  be  perfected  cautiously,  however. 
Because  of  an  act  of  1885  prohibiting  the  leasing  of  a  domestic 
corporation  to  a  foreign  corporation,  it  wa?  not  possible  for  the 
Jersey  Central  to  make  a  direct  league  with  the  Philadelphia 
and  Reading,  which  was  the  oVjact  really  aimed  at;  and  the 
necessity  of  making  the  link  through  the  agency  of  a  New 
Jersey  corporation  forced  them  to  whip  the  devil  around  the 
stump.  The  organization,  by  a  party  of  gentlemen  consisting 
of  President  McLeod  and  five  other  officers  of  the  Philadelphia. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


391 


and  Reading,  of  what  was  to  be  known  as  the  Port  Reading 
Railroad  Company,  was  the  first  step  towards  the  making  of  the 
combination.  The  object  of  this  new  company  was  to  extend  a 
road  from  Bound  Brook,  on  the  Philadelphia  and  R.eading,  over- 
land to  tide-water  on  the  Arthur  Kill,  where  an  extensive  coal 
depot  was  to  be  established.  Its  designated  capital  was 
$2,000,000.  It  was  to  have  its  business  headquarters  nominally 
at  Kaighn's  Point,  N.  J.,  where  the  Camden  ferry  of  the  Phila- 
delphia and  Reading  was  located.  It  had  no  assets  apart  from 
the  Philadelphia  and 
Reading;  it  was 
plainly  a  wheel  within 
the  Philadelphia  and 
Reading  wheel.  The 
same  day  this  incor- 
poration was  made, 
other  officers  and 
agents  of  the  Phila- 
delphia and  Reading 
formed  the  Port  Read- 
ing Construction  Com- 
pany, which  imme- 
diately entered  into  a 
contract  with  the  Phil- 
adelphia and  Reading 
to  build  the  Port 
Reading  road,  and 
$2,000  was  the  plainly 
inadequate  cash  capital  with  which  it  commenced  business. 

To  the  insignificant,  dependent  and  irresponsible  railroad 
corporation  which  was  thus  formed  and  whose  line  was  to  be 
thus  built,  the  Jersey  Central  Railroad  soon  afterwards  delivered 
itself,  with  its  more  than  forty  tributary  roads,  ils  capital  stock  of 
$30,000,000,  its  assets  of  close  on  to  $70,000,000,  its  great 
water-front  franchises,  its  stores  of  rolling  stock,  its  depots  and 
locomotives  and  workshops,  under  a  lease,  the  observance  of  the 
terms  of  which  was  guaranteed  by  a  $2,000,000  bond  of  the 


Robert  Adrain. 


392  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

Philadelphia  and  Reading  ;  aid  when  the  papers  had  been  com- 
pleted the  leagued  roads  were  ready  for  the  j  )int  business  that 
had  brought  them  into  alliance.  Even  after  the  plans  had  been 
perfected  there  were  yet  weaknesses  about  them  that  left  them 
open  to  attack,  and  for  the  purpose  of  curing  them  the  allied 
corporations  offered  to  the  Legislature  of  1892  a  bill  legalizing 
the  combination.  Ex- Congressman  Miles  Ross,  then  the  most 
considerable  political  factor  in  the  middle  section  of  the  State, 
managed  the  coal  market  in  New  York  for  the  Lehigh  Valley 
or  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading,  and  the  passage  of  the  act  was 
entrusted  to  his  skill  and  discretion. 

When  the  newspapers  made  announcement  of  the  alliance  and 
explained  its  purposes  and  results,  the  people  of  New  Jersey  be- 
came restive,  and  there  was  no  end  of  clamor  for  legislative 
interference  that  would  overthrow  the  combine.  Soon  after  the 
opening  of  the  Legislature  of  1892,  the  matter  was  brought  to 
the  attention  of  both  branches — by  Hinchliffe,  of  Passaic,  in  the 
Senate,  and  by  Lane,  of  Union,  in  the  Assembly.  Both  intro- 
duced resolutions  assailing  the  combination  as  an  unlawful  one, 
and  called  for  a  committee  of  investigation.  Mr.  Lane's  mani- 
festo was  hurled  in  advance  of  that  of  Mr.  Hinchliffe,  and  it 
attracted  the  wider  attention.  There  was  a  noticeable  laxity  in 
the  pursuit  of  both  investigations,  however,  after  they  had  been 
ordered,  and  no  report  had  been  heard  from  either  of  the  special 
committees,  when  Assemblyman  Leonard  Kalisch,  of  Essex, 
boldly  introduced  a  bill  setting  the  seal  of  the  State's  authority 
upon  the  crafty  lease.  It  was  evident  from  the  moment  the  bill 
made  its  appearance  upon  the  files  of  the  House  that  it  was 
intended  to  "  go,"  and  that  the  entire  pressure  of  a  powerful 
clique  of  political  managers  was  to  be  exerted  in  behalf  of  its 


These  gentlemen  were  all  Democrats  high  in  the  counsels  of 
the  party,  and  they  succeeded  in  giving  to  the  act  a  partisan 
aspect  that  furnished  the  Democratic  Assembly  with  a  party 
pretext  for  pushing  it  along  to  the  statute-books.  It  was  said 
that  the  backbone  of  the  Republican  party  in  New  Jersey  was 
its  alliance  with  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company,  and  that 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         393 

■the  bestowal  of  this  favor  upon  the  Lehigh  Valley  or  its  name- 
sake, the  Philadelphia  and  Reading,  would  bring  to  the  aid  of 
the  Democrats,  in  their  political  campaigns,  an  equally  powerful 
and  equally  wealthy  railroad  corporation.  Other  arguments  ad- 
vanced in  its  behalf  were  that,  as  two  roads  working  together 
would  produce  with  less  cost,  the  people  would  realize  the  bene- 
-fit  in  the  reduced  price  of  coal,  and  that  the  act  merely  permit- 
ted such  a  lease  as  the  United  Railroads  had  made  in  one  year 
to  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company,  and  as  the  Morris  and 
Essex  had  made  another  year  to  the  Delaware,  Lackawanna 
and  Western.  So  that  it  was  urged  as  not  only  a  good  stroke 
of  politics  for  a  Democratic  Legislature,  but  as  a  thing  that 
was  itself  fair  in  principle.  These  arguments  were  but  a  con- 
venient cover  for  the  baser  considerations  by  which  members  of 
both  Houses  were  being  persuaded  to  support  it ;  and  during 
the  excitements  that  ensued  the  New  York  "  Herald"  made  open 
oharges  of  bribery,  that  they  never  dared  to  subject  to  the  tests 
of  libel  suits,  against  several  members  of  the  Legislature. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  disgraceful  character  of  the 
methods  employed  by  the  lobby  to  advance  the  act  were  an  open 
secret,  the  bill  was  rushed  out  of  the  committee- room  to  the 
House  calendar  and  whipped  through  its  three  readings  to  final 
passage  at  a  single  sitting.  Schoolmaster  Eugene  C.  Cole,  the 
-sharp- tongued  Republican  member  from  Cape  May,  tried  to 
block  it  with  an  adverse  minority  report,  and  made  a  handsome 
speech  against  it.  John  WoodhuU  Beekman,  an  odd  genius, 
representing  one  of  the  Democratic  districts  in  Middlesex,  and 
Kaliscb,  the  father  of  the  bill,  espoused  it.  Beekman  subse- 
-quently  claimed,  with  some  degree  of  plausibility,  that  the  act 
would  have  given  enormous  impetus  to  business  in  his  locality. 

"  It  would  have  established  near  my  home,"  he  said,  "  the 
greatest  coal  depot  in  the  world,  and  of  course  I  was  in  favor 
of  it." 

J.  Herbert  Potts,  of  Hudson,  seconded  Cole,  but  all  their 
-eflforts  were  fruitless. 

Potts  tried  to  impale  the  swiftly-speeding  measure  on  a  point 
of  order  that,  under  the  rules,  it  could  not  be  advanced  two 


394 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


stages  in  one  day,  but  Speaker  James  J.  Bergen  took  him  off 
his  feet  with  the  announcement  that  the  rules  had  been  sus- 
pended ;  and  through  the  act  rushed  by  a  vote  of  35  to  17. 

In  the  affirmative  were  Beekman,  Bergen,  Carroll  J.,  Carroll 
T.  J.,  Cavanagh,  Coyle,  Daly,  Davidson,  Dempsey,  Dupuy, 
Flynn,  Glorieux,  Hardin,  Heaney,  Honce,  Kalisch,  Lane,  Law- 
less, Magner,  Moylan,  Nash,  Neider,  Parker  J.,  Smith  J.  F., 
Smith  Thos.,  Snyder,  Strimple,  Swartwout,  Tahen,  Tumulty, 

Ulrich,  Warne,  Wil- 
son, Wright,  Zeller. 

In  the  negative  were 
Baxter,  Burns,  Ernst, 
Gledhill,  Hagerty, 
Hoffman,  Hutchinson, 
Ketcham,  Niece,. 
Packer,  Post,  Potts, 
Ross,  Smith  F.  D., 
Stokes,  Strahan,  Tine. 
The  act  was  hastened 
to  the  Senate,  which 
had  been  held  in  ses- 
sion by  President 
Adrain  beyond  hours- 
to  receive  it,  so  that  it 
would  be  in  parlia- 
mentary position  for 
consideration  on  the 
next  morning.  Adrain  was  the  chief  lieutenant  of  ex- Con- 
gressman Miles  Ross,  and  naturally  shared  his  interest  in 
its  passage.  When  the  morning  came,  however,  it  was  dis- 
covered that  some  of  the  Democratic  Senators  were  still  in 
haggling  humor,  and  President  Adrain  abstained  from  drop- 
ping the  gavel  and  calling  the  Senate  to  order  while  they  were 
being  put  under  additional  pressure.  When  he  finally  called  the 
Senate  together  the  bill  was  rapidly  advanced  to  the  stage  of 
final  passage.  Senator  Gardner,  of  Atlantic,  punctured  it  keenly 
as  it  flitted  along,  but  without  crippling  it.     Adrain,  Barker,, 


Henry  D.  Winton. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         395 

Barrett,  Batcher,  Cornish,  Fowler,  Hinchliffe,  Hudspeth,  Marsh, 
Martin,  McMickle,  Miller  and  Perkins  voted  for  it. 

Senator  Henry  D.  Winton,  editor  of  the  Hackensack  "  Demo- 
crat," who  represented  Bergen  county  in  the  Serate,  was  the 
only  Democrat  who  joined  with  Senators  Cranmer,  Gardner, 
Rogers  and  Rue,  Republicans,  in  the  vote  against  it.  Senator 
Winton  had  noted  the  provision  that  the  act  was  to  cease  to  be 
operative  twenty- four  hours  after  the  lease  it  was  intended  to 
ratify  had  been  filed  as  a  freak  of  legislation  that  at  least  was 
not  in  good  form  ;  and  of  course  he  fully  understood  and  appre- 
ciated its  monopoly  tendency.  As  the  Democratic  party  had 
committed  itself  against  trusts  and  combines,  he  found  good 
party  reasons  also  for  casting  his  vote  against  it.  And,  beyond 
all  these  considerations,  he  felt  that  he  could  not  afford  to  be 
identified  with  the  methods  employed  to  pass  it. 

The  bill  was  sent,  with  a  great  mass  of  other  legislation  en- 
acted by  the  two  Houses  during  the  session,  to  Governor  Abbett's 
office  on  sine  die  adjournment.  He  had  thirty  days  within  which 
to  dispose  of  it.  Because  it  had  been  passed  ostensibly  to  brirg 
to  the  back  of  the  Democratic  party  as  big  a  railroad  as  that 
which  the  Republican  party  had  at  its  back,  and  because  it  was 
especially  desired  by  so  powerful  a  lieutenant  of  his  as  Miles 
Ross,  it  was  at  first  assumed  that  he  would  favor  it  with  his 
signature  at  once.  He  delayed,  however,  and  gave  the  news- 
papers an  opportunity  to  inflame  public  sentiment  against  it  till, 
if  he  had  been  ever  so  much  inclined,  he  would  scarcely  have 
dared  to  sign  it.  And  a  day  or  two  before  the  expiration  of  its 
time  he  dropped  an  intimation  through  the  New  York  "  World,'* . 
which  in  common  with  almost  all  the  New  York  newspapers 
had  bean  fierce  in  its  denunciation  of  the  measure,  that  he  would 
be  forced  to  disapprove  it.  Senators  and  Assemblymen  who 
had  compromised  themselves  by  voting  for  the  act,  on  the  assur- 
ance that  he  would  approve  it,  fljcked  to  his  office  in  New  York 
to  reason  with  him ;  but  he  had  made  up  his  mind.  He  was 
deaf  to  all  their  pleadings,  and  on  the  last  day  allowed  him  for 
its  consideration  he  filed  it  among  the  lost  bills  of  the  session, 
with  a  special  message  explaining  that  the  Houses  had  passed  it 


-396 


MODERN   BA.TTLE3  OF  TRENTON. 


-on  a  specific  engagement  of  the  leagued  roads  that  they  would 
not  increase  the  price  of  coal  to  New  Jersey  consumers,  but  that 
he  had  found  it  impossible  to  sign  it  because  of  his  inability  to 
force  them  to  put  this  engagement  in  such  shape  as  that  they 
would  be  bound  by  it. 

The  public  excitement  aroused  by  the  passage  of  the  act  was 
so  great  that  the  Democratic  leaders  scarcely  felt  it  safe  to  risk 
their  chances  of  success  in  the  succeeding  Assembly  campaigns 
even  to  the  gerrymander ;  and  there  was  a  notable  exclusion 

from  the  conventions  of 


statesmen 
given    their 


Assembly 
who    had 

votes  for  the  bill.  All 
through  Essex  word 
went  abroad  that  none 
of  the  Assemblymen 
whose  names  appeared 
in  the  record  of  the 
"  aye "  vote  should  be 
put  in  renomination  and 
the  order  was  carried 
out.  Miles  Ross  had 
the  supurb  audacity  to 
run  his  three  Middlesex 
Assemblymen  through 
the  local  conventions ; 
and,  probably  because 
it  was  understood  that 
the  act  would  promote  the  establishment  of  great  coal  depots  on 
the  Raritan  Bay  shore,  the  people  re-elected  them.  Johnston 
Cornish,  too,  who  represented  the  county  of  Warren  at  the  time 
succeeded  subsequently  in  making  a  successful  canvass  for  Con- 
gress in  spite  of  the  support  he  had  given  to  the  bill.  Mr. 
Cornish  was  the  prime  Democratic  factor  in  Warren  county. 
His  father  had  been  something  of  a  boss  there  before  him  and 
had  been  a  predecessor  of  his  son  in  the  State  Senate.  The 
younger  Cornish  succeeded  in  compassing  a  nomination  for  the 


Johnston  Cornish. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  397 

Senate  even  before  he  had  attained  the  constitutional  age  of 
thirty  years;  but  he  withdrew  when  his  age  disqualification 
was  brought  to  his  notice.  At  the  next  election,  in  1890,  he 
won  the  seat  and  there  he  so  strengthened  his  lines  that  even 
his  vote  for  the  Coal  Combine  bill  was  not  a  sufficiently  potent 
argument  to  defeat  him  when  in  1892  he  ran  against  Ben- 
jamin F.  Howey  for  a  seat  in  Congress.  These  were,  however,, 
exceptional  instances  of  good  fortune.  Wherever  in  other  parts 
of  the  State  an  advocate  of  the  coal  combine  measure  ventured 
to  seek  re-election  he  encountered  popular  opposition  that  defeated 
him. 

Miles  Ross  was  angered  beyond  expression  when  he  learned  of 
the  lame  and  impotent  conclusion  of  his  winter's  work,  and  with 
the  Senators  and  Assemblymen  whose  votes  had  passed  the  bill, 
openly  charged  that  the  Governor  had  betrayed  them  and  as 
openly  predicted  that  he  should  be  punished  for  the  betrayal  by 
the  loss  of  the  United  States  Senatorship.  In  the  hope  of 
making  up  in  popular  support  for  the  machine  support  that  he 
thus  stood  the  chance  of  losing,  Governor  Abbett  started  out  in 
relentless  pursuit  of  the  coal  syndicate,  which  was  steadily  pro- 
fiting its  combination  by  advancing  the  price  of  its  mine 
products.  The  combination  still  insisted  that  the  lease  was 
good  even  without  the  legislation  he  had  defeated,  and  the 
legal  inquiries  made  by  himself  and  that  ablest  of  advocates, 
Attorney- General  Stockton,  led  them  to  the  conclusion  that  there 
might  be  something  of  basis  for  the  boast.  They  had  put  their 
combined  skill  and  genius  upon  the  problem  for  several  weeks 
before  they  were  prepared  for  the  attack.  When  they  had  equip- 
ped themselves  they  advanced  upon  the  leagued  companies  front, 
rear  and  flank.  The  decisive  battle  was  now  on  an  application 
made,  upon  information,  to  Chancellor  Alexander  T.  McGill  by 
the  Attorney- General  and  Frederic  W.  Stevens,  on  behalf  of 
the  State,  for  an  order  requiring  the  leagued  companies  to  show 
cause  why  an  injunction  should  not  issue  against  them.  The 
immediate  object  of  the  information  upon  which  the  injunction 
was  asked  was  to  have  the  lease  by  which  the  Central  Railroad 
Company  had  turned  its  great  properties  over  to  the  little  Port 


Alexander  T.  McGill, 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  399 

RfadiDg  Railroad  and  the  tripartite  agreement  into  which  those 
two  roads  and  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  had  entered,  declared 
void  on  the  ground  that  they  tended  to  create  a  monoply  of  the 
anthracite  coal  trade  in  New  Jersey  by  stifling  competition 
between  the  contracting  corporations  and  thereby  to  increase  the 
price  of  the  coal  which  Jerseymen  most  consumed.  The  coun- 
sel sought  a  mandatory  decree  requiring  the  Port  Reading  Com- 
pany to  give  back  to  the  Jersey  Central  the  property  it  had 
leased  to  it  and  forbidding  the  three  corporate  defendants  from 
all  future  combinations  to  arbitrarily  increase  the  price  of  coal 
to  the  inhabitants  of  the  State  of  New  Jersey. 

The  case  was  presented  and  argued  with  matchless  skill  on 
both  sides.  Those  who  heard  it  say  that  Attorney- General 
Stockton's  speech  stamped  him  as  one  of  the  greatest  pleaders 
in  the  country.  Arrayed  against  him  and  Mr.  Stevens  were 
the  shrewd,  sleek  and  oily  ex-Chancellor  Benjamin  Williamson 
of  Elizabeth,  Robert  W.  De  Forest  of  New  York  and  Samuel 
Dickson  of  Philadelphia,  on  behalf  of  the  Central,  and  by 
Thomas  N.  McCarter  and  John  R.  Emery  of  Newark,  both 
prominent  at  the  New  Jersey  bar,  and  John  T.  Johnson  of 
Philadelphia,  on  behalf  of  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading.  The 
general  contention  of  the  State's  lawyers  was  that  the  lease  to 
the  Port  Reading  was  in  violation  of  an  act  forbidding  the  leas- 
ing of  domestic  railroads  to  foreign  corporations  without  the 
express  consent  of  the  Legislature,  and  that  the  violation  of  this 
law  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  lease  to  the  Port  Reading  was  really 
a  lease  to  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading,  a  Pennsylvania  cor- 
poration. During  the  course  of  the  arguments,  the  counsel  for 
the  defendants  succeeded  in  injecting  into  the  discussion  some 
neat  technical  points  that  taxed  the  best  mental  resources  of  the 
Chancellor.  The  Chancellor's  decision,  rendered  in  August, 
1892,  shortly  after  the  argument,  was  to  the  eflfect  that  the  lease 
was  practically  to  a  foreign  corporation,  and  that  it  was  in  vio- 
lation of  the  duty  the  Jersey  Central  owed  to  the  State.  The 
decision  is  of  such  wide  interest,  and  so  clearly  defines  the  rela- 
tions of  the  corporations  to  the  community  from  which  they 
derive  their  franchises  and  ex'stence,  that  it  must  be  liberally 
quoted  from : 


400  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


"  Corporate  bodies  that  engage  in  a  public  or  quasi-public  occupation  are- 
created  by  the  State  upon  the  hypothesis  that  they  will  be  a  public  benefit," 
he  writes;  "they  enjoy  privileges  that  individuals  cannot  have.  Perpetual  or 
certain  life  is  accorded  to  them.  Usually  the  authority  of  the  right  of  eminent- 
domain  is  delegated  to  them,  often  to  be  exercised  in  whatever  locality  they 
may  be  pleased  to  designate.  The  use  of  the  common  highways  is  frequently 
subordinated  to  their  operations  and,  indeed,  the  individual  is  compelled,  even 
in  his  own  home,  to  submit  without  redress  to  discomforts  incident  to  their 
lawful  operation  which  he  would  not  be  required  to  tolerate  from  other  sources. 
Thus  they  are  given  special  privileges  because  of  the  benefits  they  are  pre- 
sumed to  confer  upon  communities.  Railways  afford  speedy  and  comfortable 
passage  to  and  from  divers  parts  of  the  country,  carry  produce  of  mines,  farms- 
and  factories  to  markets,  distribute  industries  throughout  the  land,  feed  the- 
multitudes  in  populous  cities,  and  accomplish  many  other  beneficent  ends. 
Water,  ga*,  telegraph  and  similar  corporations  also  render  to  the  public  bene- 
fits which  readily  suggest  themselves  to  the  mind  as  it  contemplates  their 
work.  While  the  State  confers  special  privileges  upon  these  favorites  it  at  the 
same  time  exacts  from  them  duties  which  also  tend  to  the  public  welfare.  The- 
whole  scheme  of  the  laws  of  their  organization  is  to  equip  and  control  them 
as  instruments  for  the  public  good.  Such  corporations  hold  their  powers  not 
merely  in  trust  for  the  pecuniary  profit  of  their  stockholders,  but  also  in  trust 
for  the  public  weal.  The  impress  for  public  good  is  stamped  upon  their  very 
being,  and  it  becomes  a  duty  which,  though  not  prescribed  in  express  language^ 
of  the  law,  is  to  be  implied  from  the  nature  of  every  power  conferred.  When, 
therefore,  it  appears  that  such  a  corporation,  unmindful  of  this  plain  duty,  acts- 
prejudicially  to  the  public  in  order  to  make  undue  gains  and  profits  for  its 
stockholders,  it  uses  its  powers  in  a  manner  not  contemplated  by  the  law  which 
confers  them.     The  use  becomes  abuse  and  is  tantamount  to  excess  of  power. 

"  I  appreciate  the  strength  of  this  arguinent,  but,  as  I  have  said,  I  do  not 
need  to  affirm  it  to  justify  my  conclusions,  and  therefore  content  myself  with- 
the  mere  statement  of  it. 

"Anticipating  that  I  might  hold  that  the  act  of  1880  is  constitutional,  and 
that  it  gives  power  to  the  Central  Eailroad  Company  to  lease  its  road  and 
franchises,  the  Attorney-General  further  urges,  first,  that  ihe  lease  in  question 
is  in  reality  made  to  a  foreign  corporation ;  and,  second,  that  such  a  lease  is- 
forbidden  by  the  statute  approved  May  2d,  1885,  entitled  'An  act  respecting 
the  leasing  of  railroads,'  except  under  conditions  which  do  not  exist. 

"I  agree  with  him  in  both  of  these  propositions. 

"  Equity  looks  at  the  substance,  not  merely  the  outward  form.  The  transac- 
tion of  the  twelfth  of  January,  1892,  between  the  three  defendants  consists,  in 
form,  of  a  lease  between  two  of  them,  and  a  guarantee  of  that  lease,  coupled- 
with  a  traffic  agreement  to  which  all  three  of  them  are  parties.  Such  is  the 
form.  But  when  the  fact  that  a  law  which,  in  its  terms,  prohibits  a  lease  to  a 
foreign  corporation  without  legislative  sanction,  is  contemplated,  and  regard  is 
had  to  the  characters  and  relations  of  the  contracting  parties,  and  to  the 
terms  of  the  instruments  they  have  entered  into,  and  the  simultaneous  execu- 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         401 


tion  of  those  instruments,  a  substantial  status  differing  from  the  form  is  dis- 
closed. The  statute  forbade  a  lease  to  tlie  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Railroad 
Company,  a  foreign  corporation,  until  a  law  should  be  enacted  wliich  would 
approve  such  a  lease,  but  it  did  not  prohibit  a  lease  to  a  domestic  corporation. 
The  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Railroad  Company,  througli  its  officers  and 
servants,  had  promoted  the  organization  of  the  Port  Reading  Railroad  Com- 
pany under  the  General  Railroad  law  of  this  State  for  the  purpose  of  build- 
ing and  operating  a  short  railway  in  connection  with  its  system.  The  capital 
of  that  company  is  $2,000,000.  The  road  is  only  twenty  miles  long.  When 
the  lease  was  made  it  was  but  partially  constructed.  Upon  such  assets  as  it 
then  had  there  existed  a  mortgage  for  §1,500,000,  an  amount  probably  in  ex- 
cess of  the  value  of  those  assets.  No  one  can  for  a  moment  believe  that  the 
Central  Railroad  Company  of  New  Jersey  would  commit  its  extensive  rail- 
road, with  its  depots,  stations,  terminals,  rolling  stock,  ferries  and  forty  auxili- 
ary roads,  in  all  representing  assets  valued  at  nearly  $70,000,000,  to  the  keep- 
ing of  so  irresponsible  a  lessee,  and  depend  upon  it  alone  for  the  security  of 
that  property  and  the  payment  of  a  rental  which,  for  a  single  year,  will  ex- 
ceed the  value  of  the  lessee's  entire  property.  The  mere  statement  of  such  a 
proposition  exhibits  a  business  absurdity.  The  lessee  was  not  only  irresponsi- 
ble under  such  a  trust,  but  was  not  in  position  to  afibrd  the  Central  Railroad 
Company  even  a  temporary  benefit  from  alliance  with  it.  Without  the  sus- 
taining arm  of  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Company  a  lease  to  it  would 
not  have  been  thought  of. 

"  The  recitals  of  the  guarantee  admit  this  absurdity  by  representing  that 
the  Central  Railroad  Company  would  not  lease  until  the  Philadelphia  and 
Reading  Company,  entering  into  the  same  transaction,  and  as  a  party  thereto, 
executed  the  paper  called  the  '  guarantee.'  That  paper  expressly  embodies 
the  lease  and  bound  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Railroad  Company  to  the 
virtual  execution  of  it.  The  lease,  so  called,  with  the  Port  Reading  Company 
was  a  mere  form.  The  guarantee  was  the  really  operative  and  important 
paper.  Without  it  the  Central  Railroad  would  not  be  assured  of  its  rental  and 
the  traffic  that  was  necessary  to  make  the  proposed  alliance  profitable,  for  the 
Port  Reading  Railroad  Company,  as  a  distinct  entity,  was  irresponsible  and 
without  power  to  assure  trafiic. 

"  But  more  than  this,  the  Port  Reading  Railroad  Company  is,  for  all  sub- 
stantial purposes,  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Railroad  Company.  It  is 
confessedly  owned  by  individuals  who  represent  and  serve  the  Philadelphia 
and  Reading.  Its  capital  stock,  save  a  few  shares,  has  gone,  or  is  to  go,  to  a 
construction  company  which  unquestionably  belongs  to  the  same  interest. 
The  construction  company  is  officered  by  the  servants  of  the  Philadelphia  and 
Reading  Railroad  Company.  It  has  commenced  work  with  an  insignificant 
paid  capital,  $2,000,  and  it  has  confessedly  drawn  moneys  from  the  Philadel- 
phia and  Reading  Railroad  to  enable  it  to  build  the  Port  Reading  road.  The 
business  offices  of  both  the  Port  Reading  Railroad  and  the  Port  Reading  Con- 
struction Company  are  identical  with  the  principal  office  of  the  Philadelphia 
and  Reading  Railroad  Company.     A  glance  at  the  execution  of  the  guarantee 

26 


402  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


exhibits  that  the  same  individimls  are  President  and  Secretary  of  both  the 
Port  Reading  Railroad  Company  and  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Railroad 
Company.  By  ofBcial  reports  stockholders  of  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading 
Railroad  Company  are  informed  that  the  Port  Reading  Railroad  is  'their' 
road,  and,  in  substance,  that  it  is  expected  to  earn  an  adequate  return  for  '  their' 
investment  in  it.  In  the  face  of  such  a  situation  it  is  idle  to  say  that  the  Port 
Reading  Railroad  Company  is  not  in  all  things,  save  in  its  intangible  and 
unsubstantial  corporate  entity,  the  Phi'adelphia  and  Reading  Railroad  Com- 
pany. It  is  only  necessary  to  state  these  particulars  to  satisfy  the  mind  of  the 
justice  of  this  conclusion. 

"  It  follows  from  the  concUision  reached,  that  the  intervention  of  the  Port 
Reading  Company  as  nominal  lessee  is  but  a  device  to  disguise  the  real  nature 
of  the  transaction.  It  is  demonstrated  as  clearly  as  words  could  state  it,  that 
the  object  of  the  transaction  was  to  place  the  Central  Railroad  within  the 
Philadelphia  and  Reading  Railroad  system.  The  Central's  reliance  was  not 
upon  the  small  unfinished  road,  with  a  comparatively  petty  capital  and  little 
•or  no  valuable  assets,  but  upon  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Railroad  Com- 
pany, that  estimated  its  assets  at  |200,000,000.  It  is  sticking  in  the  bark  to 
say  that  in  this  transaction  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Railroad  Company 
is  not  the  real  lessee,  and  that  the  guarantee  executed  by  it  is  not  the  real 
lease.  The  misnomer  of  papers  and  the  use  of  a  nominal  entity  as  nominal 
lessee  does  not  change  the  substance  of  the  transaction  with  which  this  court 
deals.  The  situation  here  may  be  summed  up  in  the  words  of  Vice  Chancellor 
Kindersley  in  Attorney-General  v.  The  Great  Northern  Railway  Co.,  1  Drew. 
&  S.  157,  6  Jur.  (N.  S.)  1006,  29  L.  J,  794:  'A  more  flimsy  device,  when  the 
particulars  are  once  known,  it  is  impossible  to  imagine.  It  may  succeed  for  a 
time  in  baffling  persons  who  may  have  an  interest  in  preventing  its  being 
done,  and  has  succeeded,  but  it  was  a  mere  crafty  contrivance  to  evade  the 
requisition  of  the  law  on  the  subject  of  joint  stock  companies.' 

"  It  must  not  be  thought  that  courts  are  powerless  to  strip  off  disguises  that 
are  designed  to  thwart  the  purposes  of  the  law.  The  mere  suggestion  of  such 
a  condition  is  an  insult  to  the  intelligence  of  the  judiciary.  Whenever  such 
disguises  are  made  apparent  they  can  readily  be  disrobed.  The  difficulty  is 
in  showing  the  disguises,  not  in  penetrating  them  when  they  appear. 

"  Now  what  is  the  effect  of  the  act  of  1885  ? 

"  It  consists  of  three  sections.  The  first  forbids  any  railroad  corporation  to 
lease  its  road  or  franchises  to  any  for  ign  corporation ;  or  to  unite,  consolidate 
or  merge  its  stock,  property,  franchises  or  road  with  those  of  a  foreign  corpora- 
tion until  the  consent  of  the  Legislature  of  this  State  thereto  shall  have  been 
obtained.  The  second  prescribes  how  that  consent  of  the  Legislature  shall  be 
obtained.  The  third  section  repeals  inconsistent  legislation.  In  short,  the  effect 
of  the  act  is  to  withdraw  the  power  to  lease  given  by  the  statute  of  1880,  so  far 
as  a  lease  to  a  foreign  corporation  is  concerned. 

"  The  defendants  attack  this  act  by  claiming  that  it  contravenes  two  require- 
ments of  the  Constitution,  contained  in  paragraph  11,  section  7,  article  IV., 
one  of  which  is  that  the  Legislature  shall  not  pass  any  private  or  special  law 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         403 


'granting  to  any  corporation,  association  or  individual  any  exclusive  privilege, 
immunity  or  franchise  whatever,'  and  the  other  of  which  is  that  '  the  Legis- 
lature shall  pass  no  special  act  conferring  corporate  powers.'  Their  argu- 
ment is  that  the  proposed  lease  is  to  be  without  validity  until  it  shall  be 
approved  by  an  act  of  the  Legislature  passed  for  that  purpose,  and  that  as  any 
lease,  to  be  approved,  will  be  replete  with  conditions,  covenants  and  terms 
which,  in  their  very  nature,  are  special  and  inapplicable  to  any  person,  natural 
or  artificial,  other  than  the  contracting  parties  therein,  any,  even  general,  act 
ratifying  it  must  confer  a  particularly  limited  power,  and  to  some  extent 
exclusive  privilege,  upon  the  corporate  parties  to  the  lease. 

"  If  this  argument  should  be  applied  to  a  law  specially  passed  to  sanction  a 
particular  lease,  it  might  be  regarded  as  sound,  but  as  no  such  law  has  been 
passed  it  is  obvious  that  its  validity  cannot  be  discussed  or  determined.  The 
law  now  considered  is  the  act  of  1885.  That  act  does  not  confer  either  a 
power  or  a  privilege.  Its  object  is  to  restrict  or  condition  the  exercise  of  an 
existing  power.  The  objection  urged,  then,  properly  should  be  that  the  law 
of  1885  cannot  constitutionally  be  put  in  force  according  to  the  legislative 
intent,  and  to  sustain  that  objection  it  must  appear  that  an  attempt  to  act  under 
the  law  will,  of  necessity,  induce  legislation  that  will  be  unconstitutional  and 
therefore  void,  and  the  argument  will  be  that  as  for  that  reason  no  action  under 
the  law  can  be  successful,  the  law  is  incapable  of  being  performed,  and  there- 
fore binds  not. 

"  It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  the  reference  to  a  subsequent  Legis- 
lature is  couched  in  terms  which  manifestly  contemplate  a  lawful  exercise  of 
the  law-making  power.  The  action  is  to  be  by  '  an  act  passed  for  that  purpose.' 
The  statute  attacked,  then,  contemplates  a  law  to  be  subsequently  made  by  a 
power  equal  to  that  from  which  it  sprang.  It  cannot  dictate  the  terms  of  such 
subsequent  law.  When  it  prescribed  that  action  should  be  by  law,  it  sur- 
rendered power  over  that  action.  I  must  assume  that  the  statute  questioned 
was  enacted  in  the  light  of  this  fundamental  principle,  for  the  lawmakers  are 
entitled  to  every  presumption  in  favor  of  their  knowledge  and  wisdom. 
Cooley  Const.  Lim.  219. 

"  Viewed  in  this  light,  the  legislative  purpose  appears  to  have  been,  not  to 
inaugurate  a  permanently  prohibitory  policy  concerning  leases  to  foreign  cor- 
rporations,  but  to  forbid  them  until  they  should  have  legislative  sanction. 
Having  no  power  over  subsequent  legislation,  the  law  could  not  prescribe  that 
that  sanction  shall  be  given  in  special  terms,  nor  does  it  intend  to  so  prescribe. 
Its  purpose  is  to  lead  the  proceeding  for  sanction  to  a  point  where  its  power 
must  cease  and  there  surrender  it.  It  in  effect  prescribed  that  railroad  cor- 
porations of  this  State  shall  not  lease  to  foreign  corporations  without  the 
sanction  of  law  to  be  hereafter  enacted ;  that  it  is  not  the  policy  of  the  law  to 
permanently  prohibit  such  a  lease,  but  it  does  now  prohibit  it,  and  will  pro- 
hibit it,  until  hereafter  a  law  to  be  enacted  shall  permit  it ;  until  a  future  law 
shall,  in  the  light  of  the  terms  desired,  prescribe  terms  under  which  it  may  , 
be  made. 


404  MODERN   BA.TTLES  OF   TRENTON. 


"That  such  uncontrolled  future  law  need  not  be  special,  is  too  plainly 
apparent  to  require  discussion. 

"The  law  of  1885,  then,  is  constitutional  and  is  applicable  to  the  lease  now 
questioned.  And  it  follows  that  the  lease  was  made  not  only  without  legal 
sanction  but  in  defiance  of  an  expressly  prohibitory  statute. 

"There  has  been  some  disagreement  among  the  cases  as  to  whether  an 
injunction  will  issue  at  the  instance  of  the  Attorney-General  to  restrain  every 
excess  of  corporate  power,  or  whether,  before  it  issues,  actual  threatened 
injury  must  be  manifest.  The  argument  which  sustains  the  first  class  of  such 
cases  is  that  every  excess  of  corporate  power  violates  the  contract  with  govern- 
ment, and  thereby  invades  public  and  governmental  rights.  The  law  deems 
such  invasion  to  be  a  public  injury.  An  apt  illustration  is  to  be  found  in 
the  case  of  Thomas  v.  West  Jersey  Kailroad  Company,  101  U.  S.  71,  where 
there  was  an  unauthorized  lease  of  a  railroad.  The  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  there  held  that  the  franchises  and  powers  granted  to  a  railway 
company  are  designed  to  be  exercised  by  it  for  the  public  good,  and  this  pur- 
pose enters  into  the  consideration  for  the  grant.  Any  contract,  therefore,  by 
which  the  corporation  disables  itself  to  perform  those  duties  to  the  public,  or 
attempts  to  absolve  itself  from  their  obligations  without  the  consent  of  the 
State,  is  a  violation  of  its  contract  with  the  State  and  tends  to  the  public 
injury. 

"The  argument  to  sustain  the  other  class  of  cases  is  that  a  court  of  equity 
should  not  move  upon  mere  legal  intendment,  but  should  be  satisfied  of  a  real, 
substantial  public  injury  which  demands  the  writ  of  injunction  in  the  due- 
protection  of  the  public.  In  the  use,  at  least,  of  a  preliminary  injunction, 
the  latter  class  of  cases  appears  to  be  the  better  founded  in  fitness  and  reason, 
for  if  there  be  no  present  emergency  to  be  met,  why  may  not  the  injunction 
be  reserved  until  final  hearing  ? 

"  But  the  exhibition  of  the  tendency  of  the  lease  in  question  to  public  injury 
does  not  rest  alone  upon  mere  legal  intendment,  and  I  may  here  apply  the 
rule,  with  the  limitation  incorporated  in  it,  that  the  tendency  to  public  injury 
must  in  fact  appear. 

"  There  are  peculiar  features  in  the  transaction  now  considered  that  evince 
a  public  danger  much  more  serious  than  appears  in  the  mere  transfer  of  cor- 
porate duties  to  performance  by  a  foreign  corporation.  The  real  lessor  and 
lessee  here  are  extensive  producers  and  carriers  of  anthracite  coal.  They  con- 
stitute two  of  the  six  great  anthracite  coal-carriers  from  the  coal  regions  of 
Pennsylvania  to  this  and  adjoining  States.  It  is  disclosed  that  the  real  lessee 
has  secured  a  lease  of  the  Lehigh  Valley  Railroad  Company,  and  that  thereby 
and  by  the  lease  in  question,  it  controls  three  of  the  six  great  coal-carriers 
referred  to,  and  also  that  the  alliance  thus  formed  now  controls,  through  the 
instrumentality  of  coal  companies,  the  capital  stock  of  which  these  combined 
carriers  own,  more  than  one-half  of  all  the  anthracite  coal  fields  in  Pennsyl- 
vania. Moreover,  as  an  indication  of  the  tendency  of  the  combination,  the 
Attorney-General  presents  a  report  by  the  lessor  defendant  to  its  stockholders, 
in  which  it  congratulates  them  upon  an  alliance  which,  with  the  co-operation 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.         405 


■of  other  large  coal-producing  companies,  will  insure  them  'greater  uniformity 
in  prices  of  coal,'  and  the  'avoidance  of  needless  and  expensive  competition 
between  producers.'  He  urges  that,  in  substance,  this  report  declares  the 
reaching  out  to  a  monopoly  which  will  work  inestimable  disaster  to  the  people 
of  the  State.  And  as  a  further  evidence  that  monopoly  is  in  view,  he  points 
also  to  an  admission  by  the  President  of  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Rail- 
road Company  that  the  lease  complained  of  will  possibly  facilitate  the 
co-operation  of  other  coal  producers,  and  in  itself,  undoubtedly  aflfect  prices 
of  coal  in  some  localities. 

"The  proofs  show  that  there  are  localities  in  this  State  which  formerly  had 
the  advantage  of  competition  between  these  allied  roads,  but  now  are  subject 
to  the  monopoly  which  this  lease  affords. 

"It  is  true  co-operation  of  the  remaining  coal  roads,  which  is  necessary  to  a 
complete  monopoly,  has  not  yet  been  secured.  By  this  lease  only  one 
competitor  is  silenced,  and  only  a  little  more  than  one-half  of  the  entire  coal 
region  is  controlled.  It  is  only  the  second  step  in  the  direction  of  the 
monopoly,  the  first  being  the  lease  of  the  Lehigh  Valley  Railroad.  It  is  to 
be  remembered,  however,  that  the  Attorney-General  may  have  his  injunction 
when  the  rdtra  vires  act  tends  or  is  of  a  nature  to  produce  public  injury. 

"  But  the  answers  deny  that  either  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Company 
or  the  Central  Company  own  any  coal  lands,  or  produce  or  deal  in  coal. 

"  The  answers  are  literally  true,  but  their  denials  in  this  respect,  without 
explanation,  and  in  the  face  of  the  facts  adverted  to,  savor  of  an  evasion  which 
disentitles  them  to  that  force  which  is  usually  accorded  to  the  denials  of 
responsive  answers  upon  such  a  preliminary  hearing  as  this. 

"  Here,  then,  we  have  great  coal  dealers,  complaining  that  they  are  not  suf- 
ficiently paid  for  the  produce  of  their  mines,  combining  so  that  already  they 
control  more  than  one-half  of  the  coal  fields  upon  which  this  State  depends 
for  fuel,  and  looking  to  the  co-operation  of  the  remaining  anthracite  coil-pro- 
ducers  to  effect  a  change  in  the  price  of  their  output  so  that  they  may  have 
more  satisfactory  return  from  their  investment.  To  say  that  these  conditions 
do  not  tend  to  a  disastrous  monopoly  in  coal,  would  be  an  insult  to  intelligence, 
It  is  possible  that  such  a  monopoly  may  be  used,  as  the  defendants  suggest,  to 
introduce  economies  and  cheapen  coal,  but  it  does  violence  to  our  knowledge 
of  human  nature  to  expect  such  a  result. 

"  The  commodity  in  which  these  companies  deal  is  a  necessary  of  life  in  this 
State.  It  is  the  principal  fuel  of  its  homes  and  factories.  The  slightest 
increase  in  its  price  is  felt  by  a  population  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  per- 
sons, for  their  necessity  compels  them  to  pay  that  increase.  If  once  a  complete 
monopoly  be  established  by  the  destruction  of  competition,  whether  that  be 
through  lease  or  by  co-operation,  the  promoters  of  it  and  sharers  in  it  may 
have  whatever  price  their  cupidity  suggests.  The  disaster  which  will  follow 
cannot  be  measured;  it  will  permeate  the  entire  community —furnaces,  forges 
factories  and  homes — leaving  in  its  trail  murmurs  of  discontent  with  a  govern- 
ment which  will  tolerate  it,  and  all  the  other  evil  effects  of  oppression. 


406  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


"  Enough  has  been  said  to  exhibit  that  the  ultra  vires  act  complained  of 
portends  the  greatest  danger  to  the  public  welfare,  and  that  the  case  is  clearly 
one  in  which  the  Attorney-General  may,  and  should,  ask  the  assistance  of  the 
court. 

"  This  is  a  preliminary  application  heard  upon  information,  answers  and  ex 
parte  proofs.  Its  object  is  to  do  more  than  to  prevent  a  threatened,  irreparable 
injury  until  the  cause  can  be  finally  heard,  and  it  should  go  no  further  in  dis- 
turbance of  the  existing  situation  than  the  eflTe.'tual  prevention  of  the  injury 
apprehended  will  admit. 

"  But  the  danger  is  serious.  I  do  not  perceive  how  I  can  effectually  prevent 
it  in  any  other  way  than  by  forbidding  all  operations  under  the  lease  and  tri- 
partite agreement,  and  performance  of  the  covenants  that  those  instruments- 
contain.  To  merely  continue  the  stay  that  has  been  granted  and  leave  the' 
Philadelphia  and  Reading  Railroad  Company  in  possession  and  operation  of 
the  property  and  franchises  of  the  Central  Company,  would  be  to  facilitate  and 
invite  infraction  of  the  order  already  made.  The  devices  for  disguise  which 
have  appeared  in  this  case,  as  attributable  to  the  defendants,  admonish  me  to 
sever,  as  far  as  possible,  the  connection  between  them  until  the  final  hearing. 
I  will,  therefore,  continue  the  present  injunction  to  final  hearing,  adding  to  it, 
however,  the  fuither  direction  that  the  defendants  and  each  of  them,  their 
officers  and  agents,  do  desist  and  refrain  from  further  performing  and  carrying 
into  efi'ect  the  lease  and  tripartite  agreement,  and  that  the  Port  Reading  Rail- 
road Company  and  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Railroad  Company  do  desist 
and  refrain  from  continuing  to  control  the  road,  property  and  franchises  of  the 
Central  Railroad  Company  of  New  Jersey,  and  from  further  in  anywise  inter- 
meddling therewitii,  and  that  the  Central  Railroad  Company  of  New  Jersey 
do  desist  and  refrain  from  permitting  the  Port  Reading  Railroad  Company  or 
the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Railroad  Company  to  use,  control  or  operate  its 
road,  property  and  franchises,  and  that  the  Central  Railroad  Company  do 
again  resume  control  of  all  its  property  and  franchises  and  the  performance  of 
all  its  corporate  duties.'' 


CHAPTER   XXXIII. 

How  Governor  Abbett  Started  Out  to  Lead  a  Hill  Delegation 
TO  Chicago  in  1892  and  Ended  as  the  Chosen  Orator  of 

THE   ClEVELANDITES  IN  THE   NATIONAL   CONVENTION. 


^j^OVERNOR  ABBETT  had  an  opportunity  to  test  his 
lAxc^ii^  strength  with  the  lieutenants  who  threatened  to  over- 
iiS^^^j^  whelm  him,  when,  three  months  later,  preparations 
were  made  for  the  holding  of  the  State  Convention  at 
which  the  New  Jersey  delegates  to  the  National  Democratic 
Convention  for  the  nomination  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States  were  to  be  chosen.  Governor  Abbett  had  been  a  promi- 
nent figure  in  all  the  Democratic  National  Conventions  held  for 
sixteen  years,  and  he  had  always  managed  to  have  the  State 
delegation  out  of  accord  with  the  sentiment  of  the  convention 
to  which  they  were  accredited.  In  1876,  for  instance,  when 
almost  every  man  who  gathered  at  St.  Louis  to  select  the  Presi- 
dential nominee  was  in  favor  of  the  nomination  of  Samuel  J. 
Tilden,  Governor  Abbett  as  its  Chairman  perversely  held  the 
New  Jersey  delegation  for  Joel  Parker,  and  cast  its  vote  for  the 
New  York  statesman  only  when  it  was  too  late  to  be  effective. 
The  lines  upon  which  Grover  Cleveland  sought  the  nomination 
in  1884  did  not  comport  with  the  Abbett  idea  of  Democratic 
politics  and  the  Governor  again  held  the  delegation  against  the 
overwhelming  sentiment  of  the  Democrats  of  the  nation,  and 
even  after  Mr.  Cleveland's  nomination  had  been  accomplished, 
announced  in  his  first  burst  of  disappointment  that  it  was  one 
which  the  masses  of  the  party  could  not  approve.  There  was 
a  wide  variance  between  the  fundamental  ideas  underlying  the 
Democracy  of  these  two  statesmen.  Mr.  Cleveland's  policy, 
foreshadowed  by  his  administration  in  the  Governorship  of  New 

(407) 


408  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


York,  was  rather  to  secure  a  proper  civil  service  than  to  reward 
the  workers  of  the  party;  Mr.  Abbett's  theory  was  that  the 
victors  were  entitled  to  the  spoils  of  office.  The  Governor 
repented  of  his  hasty  denunciation  of  the  nomination  later,  and 
like  the  earnest  Democrat  that  he  was,  went  on  the  stump  for 
Mr.  Cleveland  before  the  campaign  was  over.  When  the 
National  Convention  of  1888  was  about  to  assemble,  the  pre- 
dominant sentiment  of  .the  Democracy  of  the  nation  again 
favored  Mr.  Cleveland's  nomination.  The  Governor  stood  in 
antagonism  to  him  again  and  gave  vent  to  expressions  of  indig- 
nation when  the  convention  made  the  renomination.  Mr. 
Cleveland  had  a  warm  place  in  the  aflPections  of  the  people,  and 
in  spite  of  the  defeat  which  he  suffered  at  the  polls  in  1888,  he 
was  the  one  man  in  the  nation  to  whom  its  Democracy  for  the 
third  time  turned  for  triumph  now,  in  1892. 

David  B.  Hill,  who  succeeded  Grover  Cleveland  as  Governor 
of  New  York,  had  become  inflated  with  Presidential  aspirations, 
and  set  himself  up  as  Mr.  Cleveland's  rival  in  the  National 
Convention.  Governor  Abbett  and  he  were  close  personal 
friends,  and,  besides,  their  Democracy  was  of  the  same  style. 
They  were  both  exponents  of  the  spoils  theory  in  politics.  It 
was  an  open  secret  while  the  Presidential  canvass  of  1892  was 
taking  shape,  that  Governor  Abbett  proposed  to  ally  himself 
with  the  Hill  side  of  the  controversy ;  and  it  was  even  said  that 
he  had  put  himself  under  engagement  to  deliver  a  Hill  delega- 
tion from  New  Jersey  to  the  National  Convention  in  Chicago. 
They  became  close  as  two  peas  in  a  pod  in  the  sympathy  of  their 
political  aims.  Mr.  Hill  was  Governor  Abbett's  frequent  com- 
panion on  yachting  excursions ;  Governor  Abbett  was  once  the 
guest  of  honor  when  Hill  was  entertained  by  the  New  York 
National  Guardsmen  at  their  Peekskill  camp.  And  when,  in  the 
summer  of  1891,  Governor  Abbett  presided  over  his  own  glit- 
tering camp  of  militiamen  at  Sea  Girt,  he  invited  his  fellow- 
Governor  to  become  the  guest  of  the  State.  Mr.  Abbett  must  have 
seen  from  the  scant  courtesy  paid  him  that  Mr.  Hill  was  far  from 
being  in  favor  among  the  New  Jersey  Democrats  as  a  Presiden- 
tial possibility.     No  Democrat  of  his  prominence  had  ever  been 


MODERN   BA.TTLES   OF  TRENTON.  409 

so  coldly  welcomed  by  a  Democratic  multitude.  When  he  was 
driven  in  state  through  the  grounds,  not  even  the  presence  of 
Governor  Abbett  by  his  side  was  sufficient  to  waken  an  echo  of 
applause  among  the  thousands  who  looked  on.  He  was  allowed 
to  pass  by  as  silently  as  if  he  had  been  at  the  head  of  a  funeral 
procession.  People  seemed  to  forget  that  he  represented  a  sister 
State,  in  their  fear  of  giving  countenance  to  his  Presidential 
aspirations.  The  ardor  of  their  preference  for  Mr.  Cleveland 
made  them  impatient  of  attentions  extended  to  the  man  who 
dared  to  pose  as  his  rival. 

In  spite  of  this  manifestation  of  popular  dissent,  Governor 
Abbett  went  right  along  with  his  plans  for  a  convention  at 
Trenton  that  would  send  a  delegation  favorable  to  his  guber- 
natorial friend  to  the  National  Convention.  He  seemed  to  be 
bent  upon  overpowering  the  people  in  their  primaries,  and  upon 
the  production  at  Trenton  by  his  State  machine  of  a  convention 
which  he  could  control.  Up  to  the  very  last  moment  the  project 
seemed  likely  to  succeed.  But  his  lieutenants  did  not  give  him  as 
cordial  a  support  in  carrying  it  out  as  he  expected  to  have ;  and 
there  was,  besides,  an  uprising  of  the  masses  that  made  its  con- 
summation impossible.  It  was  a  most  remarkable  demonstration 
of  popular  power.  Even  the  delegates  who  had  been  named 
through  his  instrumentality  for  service  in  the  convention  were 
captured  by  their  enthusiastic  Cleveland  neighbors  all  over  the 
State,  and  to  keep  themselves  in  favor  were  forced  to  agree  to 
aid  in  the  selection  of  Cleveland  delegates.  In  his  own  county 
of  Hudson  the  delegates  held  a  preliminary  caucus  to  set  the 
pace  for  delegations  from  other  sections  of  the  State,  and  on 
motion  of  ex-Mayor  Isaac  W.  Taussig,  one  of  them,  openly 
declared  for  President  Cleveland's  renomination.  The  current 
was  so  strong  a  one  that  his  lieutenants  could  not  have  stemmed 
it  if  they  had  attempted  it — and  they  didn't  try.  The  hand- 
some and  portly  James  Smith,  Jr.,  of  Newark,  who  by  this  time 
had  risen  to  be  one  of  the  most  powerful  factors  in  politics,  was 
the  first  to  yield  to  the  tide.  He  had  formed  a  pleasant  personal 
acquaintance  with  ex-Secretary  William  C.  Whitney,  one  of  Mr. 
Cleveland's  most  intimate  friends,  and  had  been  flattered  by  an 


James  Smith,  Jr. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF  TRENTON. 


411' 


invitation  to  make  the  journey  to  the  National  Convention  at 
Chicago  in  Mr.  Whitney's  private  car.  His  prominence  enabled 
him  easily  to  spring  to  the  front  as  a  leader  of  the  popular  move- 
ment, and  all  of  Governor  Abbett's  big  lieutenants  fell  in  line 
behind  him. 

The  perceptible  wavering  in  his  ranks  did  not  phase  the  Gov- 
ernor a  particle.  He  still  hoped  through  the  repressive  power 
of  his  autocracy  to  put  this  popular  uprising  under  his  heel. 
The  convention  was  called  to  assemble  at  Trenton  about  the 
middle  of  May.  The 
night  before  the  day 
designated  for  its  as- 
sembling, United 
States  Senator  McPher  - 
son  dropped  into 
Jersey  City  and  was 
urged  by  his  friend  Mr. 
Young,  the  President 
of  the  First  National 
Bank,  to  attend  the 
convention.  The  Sena 
tor  was  known  as  a 
Cleveland  advocate,  and 
the  proof  that  Mr.  Ab- 
bett  had  lost  control  of 
the  delegates  was  af 
forded  in  the  splendid 
ovation  that  was  given 

to  the  Senator  the  moment  he  reached  his  rooms  in  the  Trenton 
House.  While  Governor  Abbett  was  almost  entirely  neglected  by 
the  throng,  notwithstanding  that  he  kept  the  Executive  Cham- 
ber open  to  visitors  till  late  into  the  night,  Mr.  McPherson's 
room  became  the  Mecca  of  all  the  politicians  of  high  and  low 
degree.  As  the  night  wore  on  it  became  certain  that  it  would 
be  impossible  to  pledge  the  convention  the  following  day  against 
Mr.  Cleveland,  and  there  was  even  a  disposition  to  refuse  to- 


Michael  T.  Barrett. 


412  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

indulge  Governor  Abbett's  ambition  to  be  sent  to  the  National 
Convention  as  one  of  the  State's  spokesmen. 

There  was  the  usual  play  for  points,  during  the  night,  in  the 
preliminary  organization.  The  selection  of  the  temporary 
Chairman  of  the  convention  rested  with  the  State  Committee. 
Governor  Abbett's  influence  was  potential  there,  and  he  suc- 
ceeded in  persuading  the  choice  of  Chauncy  H.  Beasley. 
But  the  advantage  thus  gained  was  of  little  benefit  to  him. 
Beasley  aroused  the  suspicions  of  the  delegates  almost  as 
soon  as  they  assembled  in  Taylor  Hall  on  the  following 
day.  Some  one  sent  to  Senator  Michael  T.  Barrett,  who  was 
the  Chief  Secretary  of  the  convention,  for  adoption,  a  motion  that 
all  resolutions  declaring  the  sense  of  the  convention  as  to  candidate 
or  platform  be  referred  without  reading  to  the  Committee  on 
Resolutions.  The  purpose  of  the  motion  was  to  smother  the 
Cleveland  enthusiasm  of  the  delegates,  which  was  apt  to  find 
expression  in  resolutions  of  one  kind  or  another.  Beasley  had 
the  temerity  to  declare  the  motion  to  refer  carried  without  even 
so  much  as  going  through  the  formality  of  calling  for  the  oppos- 
ing voices,  and  the  delegates  fairly  howled  him  off  the  platform 
in  derision ;  and  when  the  convention  re-assembled  for  permanent 
organization  Senator  Edward  F.  McDonald,  of  Hudson,  took  the 
chair  in  his  stead. 

The  real  struggle  of  the  day  was  in  the  secrecy  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Resolutions.  The  mere  selection  of  the  twelve  men 
who  were  to  go  to  the  National  Convention  to  represent  the 
State  was  considered  as  of  secondary  importance.  It  did  not 
make  much  difference  who  were  sent  if  they  were  instructed  as 
to  their  duty.  It  was  in  the  Committee  on  Resolutions  that  the 
policy  as  to  instructing  them  was  fought  out.  Allan  L. 
McDermott  went  to  the  committee-room  with  resolutions  ap- 
plauding Governor  Abbett's  administration,  lauding  his  veto  of 
the  Coal  Combine  bill  with  especial  emphasis,  but  ominously 
silent  as  to  the  greater  issue  concerning  the  Presidential  succes- 
sion. His  smooth  and  tactical  Newark  friend,  Mr.  Smith,  put 
this  series  of  deliverances  into  his  pocket,  and  persuaded  the 
committee  to  substitute  for  them  a  resolution  instructing  the 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         413 

delegates  to  Chicago  "  to  cast  the  vote  of  the  State  for  Grover 
Cleveland  as  long  as  his  name  is  before  the  convention."  When 
this  resolution  was  offered  to  the  convention  for  its  sanction, 
the  delegates  could  not  restrain  their  enthusiasm  till  the  Secre- 
tary had  read  it.  Wave  after  wave  of  applause  swept  over 
the  multitude,  wild  cheers  shook  the  building,  hats  were  tossed 
aloft,  handkerchiefs  were  waved,  and  canes  cut  frantic  circles  in 
the  air.  The  people  had  risen  against  the  autocracy,  and  the 
Governor's  machine  shivered  and  shook  as  though  an  earthquake 
had  passed  beneath  it. 

To  make  his  humiliation  the  more  acute,  the  convention  named 
Mr.  Abbett  as  one  of  its  messengers  to  carry  this  expression  of 
its  Cleveland  enthusiasm  to  Chicago.  The  Governor  chafed 
against  the  dispensation.  He  would  not  go  to  Chicago  as  a 
mere  courier.  If  he  could  not  go  as  a  free  agent,  to  do  that 
which  he  deemed  best,  he  would  not  go  at  all.  But  when  the 
time  came  he  joined  Mr.  Smith,  Senator  McPherson,  Miles 
Ross,  Samuel  Klotz  and  the  rest  of  the  selected  delegation  in 
the  trip  to  the  West.  Mr.  Smith  was  taken  into  the  councils  of 
the  Cleveland  managers  as  soon  as  he  reached  the  Windy  City, 
selected  for  important  commissions  needing  tact  and  urbanity, 
and  treated  with  the  most  distinguished  consideration.  Like 
New  Jersey,  most  of  the  other  States  had  shipped  their  delega- 
tions to  the  convention  consigned  to  Grover  Cleveland,  and  it 
was  an  easy  triumph  for  the  ex- President.  Anxious  to  rehabili- 
tate himself  with  the  people  of  his  State,  Governor  Abbett 
sought  to  make  a  conspicuous  display  of  his  readiness  to  serve 
and  obey  them,  and  he  sought  the  distinction  of  making  the 
formal  presentation  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  name  to  the  National 
Convention.  Through  the  sympathetic  offices  of  Mr.  Smith  this 
privilege  was  extended  to  him,  and  when  the  time  came  his 
magnificent  oration  in  Mr.  Cleveland's  behalf  was  drowned  in 
billows  of  enthusiastic  applause. 


Allan  L.  McDermott. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

Which  Shows  How  Mr.  Werts,  After  Being  Persuaded  by  Gov- 
ernor Abbett  to  Step  Off  the  Gubernatorial  Path  into 
A  Judicial  Niche,  was  Persuaded  by  Governor 
Abbett  to  Step  Back  Again  to  Become 
the  Governor  of  the  State. 


^ftOVERNOR  ABBETT  returned  to  his  post  from  Chi- 
^^^     cago  to  strengthen  his  Senatorial  lines  at  the  points 

aS>.X^  where  his  shrewd  eye  saw  there  was  serious  weakness. 
There  was  an  interrfgnum  ahead  during  which  all  of 
the  purposes  that  had  inspired  his  strong  personal  government 
might  be  defeated.  He  had  built  his  machine  over  the  people 
with  the  design  of  climbing  from  it  into  the  United  States 
Senate  at  the  expiration  of  Mr.  Blodgett's  term  in  1893  without 
asking  their  leave.  The  joint  meeting  of  the  Legislature  at 
which  Mr.  Blodgett's  successor  was  to  be  chosen  was  to  be  held 
on  the  third  Tuesday  of  January.  If  he  could  have  kept  at 
the  head  of  his  State  machine  up  to  the  time  of  the  eventful 
meeting,  it  would  have  been  an  easy  thing  to  make  it  produce 
the  desired  result.  Its  possibilities  in  the  way  of  rewards  and 
punishments  would  have  enabled  him  to  make  the  members  in 
joint  meeting  bend  to  his  will.  It  was  there  that  the  difficulty 
lay.  He  could  not  stay  in  command  himself.  His  term  as 
Governor  would  run  out  two  weeks  in  advance  of  the  joint 
meeting.  For  the  fortnight  immediately  preceding  joint  meet- 
ing, another  captain  than  himself  must  be  at  the  helm.  To 
insure  the  employment  for  his  benefit  of  the  great  powers  which 
he  was  to  hand  over  to  his  successor,  it  was  primarily  necessary 
that  the  man  to  step  into  the  Governorship  after  him  should  be 
of  his  own  selection  and  in  sympathy  with  his  ambitions.  Else 
the  enormous  patronage  of  the  office  might  be  employed  to  his 
undoing. 

(415) 


416  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 

He  began  to  guard  against  the  dangerous  possibilities  of  the 
fortnight  early  in  the  game.  The  gubernatorial  possibility  that 
cast  the  deepest  shadow  before  was  Senator  George  T.  Werts,  of 
Morris.  There  had  been  a  sort  of  tacit  understanding,  ever 
since  Mr.  Werts  had  by  vote  and  influence  helped  Senator  Mc- 
Pherson  to  a  re-election  in  1889,  that  he  was  to  have  Mr. 
McPherson's  aid  in  attaining  the  nomination  for  the  Governor- 
ship in  1892.  Senator  Werts  had  meanwhile  forced  himself 
into  recognition  by  making  a  record  for  himself  that  brought 
him  into  prominence.  He  had  linked  his  name  with  the  Ballot 
Reform  law,  and  had  been  instrumental  in  framing  a  lasting 
revision  of  the  Republican  High  License  and  Local  Option  act. 
Then  he  had  attractive  personal  qualities  that  won  him  friends 
everywhere.  Genial,  courteous,  approachable,  entertaining,  a 
man  of  infinite  humor,  full  of  quip  and  jest  and  anecdote,  he 
had  those  shining  social  qualities  that  attract  men. 

Governor  Abbett  looked  askance  at  the  Morris  man's  growing 
boom.  He  was  afraid  that  there  was  a  trifle  too  much  of  inde- 
pendence of  character  in  his  make-up  to  permit  him  to  be  as  clay 
in  his  hands  during  the  eventful  fortnight,  and  he  sought  an 
opportunity  to  retire  him  from  the  public  view.  The  oppor- 
tunity came  early  in  1892,  when  Justice  Manning  M.  Knapp 
was  stricken  with  death,  upon  his  bench,  while  denouncing  one 
of  the  calloused  grand  juries  of  Hudson  county  for  their 
systematic  protection  of  crime.  The  Governor  lost  no  time  in 
tendering  the  seat  in  the  Supreme  Court  to  this  unwelcome 
gubernatorial  possibility.  Senator  Werts  hesitated  about  accept- 
ing, tempting  offer  though  it  was.  He  realized  that  the  accept- 
ance meant  the  relinquishment  of  his  gubernatorial  aspirations, 
and  he  was  reluctant  to  make  the  sacrifice.  The  voice  that  was 
potent  in  determining  him  to  assume  the  proffered  distinction 
was  that  of  Mrs.  Werts.  It  was  a  dignified  position,  and,  be- 
sides being  a  life  place,  took  him  out  of  the  purely  political  life 
that  was  distasteful  to  her ;  and  in  answer  to  her  solicitations  he 
finally  yielded.  In  February  he  resigned  his  seat  in  the  Senate, 
settled  in  a  handsome  mansion  on  Jersey  City  Heights  that  had 
once  been  the  home  of  ex-Mayor  Charles  Seidler,  and  took  the 
martyred  Knapp's  place  in  the  Hudson  County  Circuit. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  417 

This  seetniDg  abandonment  of  his  lien  on  the  nomination 
apparently  paved  the  way  for  the  nomination  to  the  Governor- 
ship of  Judge  Job  H.  Lippincott,  of  Hudson  county,  whose 
splendid  services  in  the  pursuit  of  the  ballot-box  conspirators 
had  won  him  the  admiration  of  the  masses.  The  gangs  that 
ruled  the  State  frowned  on  him,  of  course,  and  loudly  boasted 
that  they  would  not  permit  him  to  succeed  in  the  convention. 
The  discussions  concerning  his  candidacy  were  kept  up  with 
much  vigor,  till  Senator  McPherson  gave  new  force  to  the  drift 
by  an  interview  made  public  on  the  eve  of  a  little  run  to 
Europe  which  he  had  in  contemplation.  He  declared  against 
the  autocracy  and  its  attendants  of  ring  rule  and  corruption,  and, 
demanding  an  honest  administration  of  public  affairs  with  a  due 
regard  to  popular  rights,  suggested  that  the  welfare  of  the 
Commonwealth  would  be  safe  in  the  event  of  the  nomination  of 
either  Judge  Lippincott  or  of  Edward  F.  C.  Young  as  Governor 
Abbett's  successor. 

Both  by  the  lines  of  the  policy  it  indicated  as  that  which  the 
new  administration  should  pursue,  and  by  the  men  whom  it 
named  to  carry  it  out,  Senator  McPherson's  pronunciamento  was 
a  direct  thrust  at  Mr.  Abbett's  supremacy.  Mr.  Abbett's  friends 
had  long  flattered  themselves  that  Mr.  McPherson  was  not  ready 
to  be  overshadowed  in  the  Senate  by  a  man  of  Abbett's  eloquence 
and  resource.  This  move  of  his  was  quoted  by  them  as  a  proof. 
Neither  of  the  gentlemen  whom  he  had  named  was  acceptable 
to  the  Governor's  closest  advisers — Lippincott,  for  the  reason 
that  he  had  already  placed  himself  in  public  antagonism  to  the 
prevailing  misrule,  and  Young  because  he  had  never  been 
amenable  to  Mr.  Abbett's  influence. 

At  that  time  Mr.  Young  was  the  President  of  the  First 
National  Bank  in  Jersey  City,  and  of  the  Dixon  Crucible  Com- 
pany, which  he  had  rescued  from  bankruptcy.  He  had  lived 
for  nearly  fifty  years  in  Jersey  City,  and  was  looked  upon  as 
the  typical  business  man  of  the  State.  He  traced  his  ancestry 
to  Rev.  John  Yonge,  of  England,  who  about  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century  migrated  to  Southold,  L.  I., 
where  his  grave  has  ever  been  kept  green  by  the  succeeding 

27 


Edward  F.  C.  Young 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  419 

generations ;  but  New  Jersey  had  been  the  home  of  his  ancestors 
far  into  the  past.  His  father  and  grandfather  had  been  born  in  the 
same  room  in  the  old  homestead  in  Morris  county  in  which  he 
himself  first  saw  the  light  of  day.  A  rural  career  was  altogether 
too  dull  and  unattractive  for  a  man  of  his  active  temperament,  and 
so  it  was  that  he  had  moved  city- ward.  He  began  his  business 
career  with  the  Hudson  County  Bank,  in  November,  1852, 
where,  six  months  before,  the  late  Augustus  A.  Hardenbergh, 
who  himself  achieved  distinction  in  public  life,  had  taken  a 
desk.  An  offer  of  the  Tellership  tempted  him  twelve  years  later 
to  the  First  National  Bank,  which  was  just  then  on  the  eve  of 
absorbing  the  old  Mechanics  and  Traders  Bank.  He  became 
Assistant  Cashier  in  1865,  its  Cashier  in  1874,  and  on  the  death 
of  the  late  Alexander  Hamilton  Wallis,  in  1879,  was  made  its 
President.  He  knew  men  at  a  glance  and  by  his  shrewd  busi- 
ness management  had,  when  he  was  summoned  to  the  front  in 
this  gubernatorial  campaign,  built  the  bank  into  the  most  impor- 
tant financial  institution  in  the  State.  His  business  lines  reached 
out  in  every  direction,  and  through  them  he  had  gradually 
grown,  almost  without  observing  it  himself,  to  be  an  influential 
political  factor.  The  lines  of  politics  in  Hudson  county  led  as 
unfailingly,  as  the  lines  of  business,  to  his  ornate  little  office  in 
the  bank  building. 

He  found  diversion  from  his  absorbing  business  activities  in 
his  political  side-plays ;  and,  a  man  of  method  and  system,  he 
made  it  possible  to  give  himself  occasionally  to  the  public  ser- 
vice. He  acted  away  back  in  the  fifties,  when  Cornelius  Van 
Vorst  was  Mayor  of  the  city,  as  Collector  of  Assessments ;  and, 
even  while  attending  to  his  bank  duties,  he  managed  to  serve  as 
City  Treasurer  from  1865  to  1870;  and  subsequently,  when 
City  Comptroller  Nelson  was  disabled  by  sickness,  he  officiated 
in  his  stead,  by  appointment  of  the  Board  of  Finance,  and  paid 
all  the  salary  of  the  place  over  to  Mr.  Nelson's  amiable  wife 
and  daughters.  The  old  Fifth  district,  the  Republican  strong- 
hold in  the  county,  complimented  him  by  electing  him,  though 
a  Democrat,  first  to  the  City  Council  and  then  to  the  Board  of 
Freeholders ;  and  he  was  the  first  Director- at- Large  in  the  his- 


420  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

tory  of  county  aifairs.  He  was  New  Jersey  Director  of  Rail- 
roads for  five  years;  in  1880  was  one  of  the  Electors  who  cast 
the  vote  of  New  Jersey  for  Winfield  8.  Hancock  for  President 
of  the  United  States,  and  in  1888  represented  New  Jersey  in 
the  National  Convention  that  gave  Grover  Cleveland  his  second 
nomination  for  the  Presidency.  His  business  and  political  and 
corporation  attachments  enabled  him  to  put  his  hand  upon  the 
key-board  of  State  politics  whenever  he  desired,  and  to  bring  a 
response  as  often  as  he  touched  it. 

Mr.  Young  had  not,  however,  consented  to  the  use  of  his 
name  till  he  had  consulted  with  Senator  Werts,  and  it  is  not 
impossible  that  he  may  himself  have  contributed  to  the  defeat 
he  suffered  in  the  convention.  He  gave  assurances  to  Judge 
Werts  that  if  the  Judge  proposed  to  enter  the  lists  he  would 
not  enter,  and  that  he  would  place  himself  in  the  hands  of  his 
friends  only  providing  the  Judge  intended  to  keep  out.  Judge 
Werts  was  still  wedded  to  the  Bench,  and  Mr.  Young  allowed 
himself  to  be  considered  as'a  candidate.  Ex-Congressman  Miles 
Ross,  acting  for  himself  and  Mr.  McPherson,  had  also  sought  the 
Judge  at  his  house  and  made  their  first  offers  of  aid  to  him  if 
he  desired  the  nomination.  The  Judge  had  given  the  same  assur- 
ance to  them  that  he  now  gave  to  Mr.  Young,  and  it  was  only 
after  he  had  declined  the  profi'ered  services  that  Senator  Mc- 
Pherson suggested  the  names  of  Mr.  Young  and  Judge  Lip- 
pincott. 

Senator  McPherson  made  a  shrewd  stroke  in  politics  when 
he  named  this  important  business  worker  as  an  alternative 
with  Judge  Lippincott  for  the  gubernatorial  nomination.  The 
alliance  of  the  two  names  was  calculated  to  bring  to  Mr.  Young's 
back  all  of  the  independent  sentiment  Judge  Lippincott's  record 
had  brought  into  play ;  or  to  Judge  Lippincott's  back  the  com- 
pact business  support  that  Mr.  Young  could  command. 

Judge  Lippincott  was  willing  to  let  his  candidacy  drift.  But 
Mr.  Young  went  to  work  on  his  fences  with  an  ardor  born  of  a 
determination  to  win.  Mr.  McPherson  had  gone  to  Europe  with 
the  promise  to  return  in  time  to  put  the  finishing  touches  to  his 
fight  before  the  convention.     Governor  Abbett  looked   with 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         421 

dismay  upon  the  growing  strength  of  the  Jersey  City  Bank 
President.  He  had  satisfied  himself  that  Mr.  Young  would  be 
everything  but  a  complaisant  Governor ;  and  he  called  his  lieu- 
tenants into  council,  to  consult  as  to  the  surest  means  of  flanking- 
the  advance  of  this  arch  enemy  of  his.  They  were  not  all  true 
friends  who  gathered  with  the  Governor  at  their  conferences. 
Some  of  them  with  keen  remembrance  of  his  race-track  and 
coal  combine  vetoes,  were  even  then  plotting  for  his  overthrow. 
Governor  Abbett  must  have  suspected  their  fidelity,  but  he  had 
made  his  bed  with  them,  and  he  was  now  obliged  to  sleep  with 
them  or  with  nobody.  But  they  too  had  their  own  reasons  for 
opposing  Mr.  Young,  and  a  common  cause  against  a  common 
enemy  bound  them  to  an  alliance  with  Abbett. 

Presently  there  came  a  voice  from  South  Jersey  that  Judge 
Werts  must  be  put  in  nomination,  nolen  volens.  Colonel  Price, 
City  Comptroller  Connelly,  and  other  local  followers  of  James 
Smith,  Jr.,  of  Newark,  caught  up  the  cry,  and  it  was  not  long 
before  Judge  Werts  was  recognized  as  the  man  whose  name  was 
to  be  used  by  the  anti- Young  men  to  conjure  with.  The  Judge 
was  hunted  out  and  asked  point  blank  what  his  designs  were. 
It  was  plain  from  the  tenor  of  his  answers  that  he  did  not 
desire  to  be  a  candidate.  Still  the  battle  for  him  went  on  and 
he  was  subjected  to  endless  pressure  to  reconsider  his  determina- 
tion. He  was  warned  that  he  would  be  held  responsible  for  the 
party  defeat  that  might  follow  his  refusal  to  accept  the  nomina- 
tion when  it  had  been  tendered  to  him.  His  own  disposition 
was  to  defeat  this  scheme  by  a  plump  public  announcement  of  his 
utter  unwillingness  to  serve ;  but  the  Young  managers  thought 
South  Jersey  could  be  better  held  in  hand  by  the  Judge's  atti- 
tude of  uncertainty,  and  it  was  continued. 

Allan  McDermott  and  James  Smith,  Jr.,  were  not  slow  to 
quote  his  failure  to  make  a  public  declination  as  an  evidence 
that  he  could  be  prevailed  upon  to  accept  a  nomination  properly 
tendered  to  him,  and  they  found  their  campaign  in  Werts's 
behalf  strengthened  by  the  plea  that  for  once  the  office  was  seek- 
ing the  man.  The  battle  was  waged  on  both  sides  with  such 
skill  that  a  day  or  two  before  that  named  for  the  holding  of  the 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         423 

convention  the  two  factions  seemed  to  divide  the  Democratic 
strength  of  the  State  equally.  The  turn  of  a  hair  was  enough 
to  determine  the  rivalry.  Senator  MePherson  was  expected  to 
turn  the  hair  to  Mr.  Young's  side,  and  his  followers  hailed  with 
hopeful  enthusiasm  the  announcement,  a  week  before  the  con- 
vention, that  the  vessel  which  was  bringing  him  back  to  these 
shores  to  take  command  of  the  convention  had  just  been 
"  spoken  "  off  Sandy  Hook. 

Two  oommunities  of  newspaper  readers  saw  the  announce- 
ment in  their  journals  of  the  following  morning  that  the  fear  that 
there  might  be  Asiatic  cholera  infection  on  the  steamer  had  led 
the  health  authorities  of  New  York  to  forbid  the  transfer  of 
either  passengers  or  baggage  from  her.  One  of  these  communi- 
ties was  the  fun- loving  public  who  had  awaited  the  arrival  of 
Miss  Tara-ra-ra-Boom-de-Ya  Collins  with  keen  anticipation. 
The  other  was  the  throng  of  Jerseymen  who  learned  with  undis- 
guised anxiety  that  Senator  MePherson  was  among  those  who  had 
been  doomed  with  her  to  an  indefinite  imprisonment  at  Quaran- 
tine. Mr.  McPherson's allies  hoped  that  the  next  day  would  bring 
news  of  his  release  by  special  dispensation.  But  when  the  next 
day,  and  the  next,  and  the  next  went  by,  and  he  was  still  a 
prisoner,  they  began  to  lose  hope.  Richard  M.  Jordan,  brother 
of  Comptroller  Thomas  D.  Jordan,  of  the  Equitable  Insurance 
Company,  in  New  York,  and  of  ex-United  States  Treasurer 
Conrad  N.  Jordan,  and  a  particularly  close  friend  of  the 
Senator,  is  said  to  have  steamed  down  the  Bay  in  a  tug 
and  invited  the  Senator  to  steal  away  to  shore  under  cover  of 
the  night;  but  the  Senator  declined  to  presume  upon  his  promi- 
nence to  run  a  blockade  for  which  a  less  conspicuous  passenger 
would  be  hunted.  And  when  it  became  apparent,  a  day  or  two 
before  the  convention,  that  the  Senator  would  not  be  able  to 
release  himself  in  time  to  render  to  Mr.  Young  the  service  he 
hoped  to  render  him,  Governor  Abbett  ran  down  to  the  ship's 
side  in  his  steam  jacht  and  "chaffed"  him  over  the  ship's 
guards  on  his  discomfiture. 

The  convention  that  Senator  MePherson  was  thus  prevented 
from  assisting  to  mould  as  he  hoped  was  held  early  in  Septem- 


424  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

ber  (1892).  It  proved  to  be  one  of  the  most  exciting  and 
tumultuous  that  had  ever  been  witnessed  in  Trenton.  The  two 
clans  had  arrayed  themselves — for  Young,  who  was  known  to  be 
willing  to  accept,  and  for  Werts,  who  was  still  protesting  that 
he  did  not  want  to  run.  A  martial  odor  pervaded  the  great 
hall.  One  could  almost  hear  the  war-horses  of  the  contending 
armies  snorting  for  the  fray.  The  State  Committee  designated 
the  mild-mannered  ex-Speaker  Bergen,  of  Somerset,  to  preside. 
A  skirmish-line  engagement  was  the  outgrowth  of  the  scotched 
anti- Cleveland  movement  of  the  Abbett  camp.  Hinchliffe,  who 
had  been  favorable  to  Cleveland,  and  Prosecutor  William  B. 
Gourley,  who  had  been  of  the  Abbett-Hill  forces,  led  opposing 
delegations  from  Passaic  to  the  convention.  A  bitter  strife  for 
admission  to  its  privileges  ensued.  The  convention  knew  its 
friends^  and  the  Gourley  contingent  secured  recognition.  That 
was  first  blood  for  the  Abbett  side.  It  was  an  earnest  that  the 
Werts  agitators  were  somewhat  in  the  ascendancy. 

Speaker  Bergen  had  meanwhile  given  place  to  Edward  F. 
McDonald,  who  was  made  the  permanent  Chairman  of  the  con- 
vention. He  was  of  commanding  presence,  of  stentorian  voice, 
and  at  conventions  in  Hudson  he  had  been  accustomed  to  face 
turbulent  throngs  such  as  that  now  before  him.  But  it  needed 
all  his  power  of  lung  to  make  himself  heard  above  the  ceaseless 
tumult  of  this  gathering,  and  all  of  his  splendid  tact  as  a  pre- 
siding officer  to  keep  the  roaring  and  shouting  and  snarling 
crowd  in  check.  When  he  found  himself  unequal  to  the  task 
he  invoked  the  aid  of  the  band  in  the  gallery,  and  drowned  out 
the  noise  to  the  tune  of  Yankee  Doodle.  Hudson,  which  was 
solid  for  Young,  and  Essex,  equally  solid  for  Werts,  lowered  at 
each  other  from  their  benches,  and  each  met  the  others'  cheers 
with  hisses  as  if  a  nest  of  serpents  had  been  aroused  to  wra^h. 
Atlantic  and  Bergen  waived  the  formal  presentation  of  their 
choice.  When  they  explained  that  they  deferred  to  Prosecutor 
Winfield,  the  Hudson  delegates,  led  by  a  young  son  of  ex-Gov- 
ernor Bedle  and  aided  by  the  smooth-tongued  Senator  Edwards, 
broke  into  a  pandemonium  of  derisive  yells.  The  Werts  work- 
ers had  asked  Mr.  Winfield  to  make  the  nominating  speech  for 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         425 

the  Judge.  When  the  campaign  was  young  Mr.  Winfield  had 
been  indifferent  as  to  his  preference.  But  he  had  finally  decided 
to  espouse  the  nomination  of  Judge  Werts.  When  he  sought 
election  as  one  of  the  Hudson  delegates  to  the  convention,  the 
whole  power  of  the  machine  had  been  turned  upon  him,  and  he 
was  defeated.  He  was  present  in  convention  now  only  as  a 
proxy  for  some  elected  man  who  had  given  him  his  credentials. 

When  at  the  proper  moment  he  rose  from  his  seat  among  the 
Hudson  delegates  to  make  the  speech  for  Werts  he  had  gone 
there  to  make,  the  throng  that  surrounded  him  fought  like  tigers 
to  keep  him  off  the  floor.  Delegations  from  other  parts  of  the 
State  shouted  to  him  to  take  the  platform,  and  he  had  to  fight 
every  inch  of  his  way  out  of  the  Hudson  benches.  As  he  was 
lifted  to  the  platform  from  the  orchestra  pit,  on  the  shoulders 
of  sympathetic  delegates,  he  shook  his  lion- like  mane  in  angry 
defiance  of  the  crowd  from  which  he  had  just  escaped,  and  roared 
with  keen  sarcasm  that  the  scene  through  which  he  had  just 
passed  reminded  him  of  the  fight  of  St.  Paul  with  the  beasts  at 
Ephesus. 

"  I  do  not  pretend  to  be  St.  Paul,"  he  exclaimed  by  way  of 
emphasizing  the  intimation  that  the  crowd  that  had  tried  to  battle 
him  into  silence  were  beasts,  and  then  he  launched  out  into  a 
brilliant  eulogy  of  Judge  Werts  that  kept  the  air  vocal  with 
applause  and  hisses.  When  he  had  finished,  Edwards  made  a 
hot  personal  attack  upon  him,  and  denounced  him  as  having 
favored  Young  till  he  had  learned  that  Young  would  not  purchase 
his  support  by  a  promise  of  re- appointment  to  the  Prosecutor- 
ship.  When,  Hudson  being  reached.  Senator  Daly,  of  that 
county,  sprang  to  the  platform  to  put  Mr.  Young's  name  before 
the  convention,  it  was  the  other  side's  turn  to  indulge  in  a  Babel 
of  yells  and  groans.  In  one  of  the  lulls,  the  courtly  Paul 
Revere,  of  Morristown,  managed  to  get  in  ex- Congressman  A.  W. 
•Cutler's  name,  and  in  another  W.  Holt  Apgar,  a  young  Trenton 
lawyer,  found  it  possible  to  edge  in  the  name  of  Gen.  Richard 
A.  Donnelly.  President  Adrain  injected  an  element  of  opera 
bouffe  into  the  tumult,  by  making  a  railing  and  sarcastic  ad- 


426  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

dress,  in  which  he  handled  the  Essex  men,  particularly,  in  a 
manner  peculiarly  his  own. 

The  roll-call  finally  taken  showed  an  almost  equal  division 
of  the  votes  between  the  two  sides;  but  the  advocates  of  Judge 
Werts  were  a  trifle  in  the  lead,  and  amid  a  closing  uproar  Mr. 
McDonald  declared  him  to  be  the  nominee  of  the  party.  This 
though  there  had  been  as  yet  no  intimation  that  the  Judge 
would  accept;  and  for  several  days  after  the  convention  had 
dissolved  Senator  Werts's  complacence  was  still  in  question. 
When  the  committee  of  notification  visited  him,  upon  his  invita- 
tion, at  his  home  on  Jersey  City  Heights,  it  was  even  yet  a  ques- 
tion as  to  what  course  he  intended  to  pursue.  Mrs.  Werts  had 
prepared  a  beautiful  little  mid- day  lunch  for  the  expected  visit- 
ors, and  upon  being  notified  of  the  action  of  the  convention 
Senator  Werts  read  a  letter,  in  which  he  declared  his  readiness 
to  stand,  but  at  the  same  time  exhibited  his  want  of  sympathy 
with  the  system  of  government  that  had  of  late  years  prevailed 
in  the  State.  The  letter  itself  was  an  exquisite  piece  of  literary 
work,  and  showed  the  new  candidate  to  be  unusually  skilled' 
as  a  writer.  Its  tone  was  marked  by  an  independence  and 
animated  by  a  spirit  of  reform  that  went  far  to  commend  him 
to  the  people  who  hoped  for  better  things  under  the  new  admin- 
istration than  they  had  been  forced  to  suffer  under  the  expiring 
one. 

Like  Mr.  Young,  Senator  Werts  came  from  an  ancient  family 
that  had  lived  for  generations  in  Morris  county.  The  late 
Attorney-  General  Vanatta,  in  whose  office  he  had  studied  law  at 
Morristown,  was  his  mother's  brother,  and  he  had  shown  his 
personal  strength  in  repeated  canvasses  for  the  Mayoralty  of 
Morristown,  carrying  it  as  a  Democratic  candidate  by  handsome 
majorities  in  spite  of  its  deep-dyed  Republicanism;  and  though 
Morris  county  itself  was  wedded  to  Republicanism,  he  had  twice 
sat  as  her  representative  in  the  State  Senate. 

The  Republicans  had  no  such  time  in  selecting  their  candidate. 
One-armed  General  Henry  M.  Nevius,  of  Monmouth,  presided 
at  their  convention.  There  was  a  rivalry  between  Frank  A. 
Magowan,  of  Mercer,  whose  election  to  the  Mayoralty  of  the 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         427 

Democratic  city  of  Trenton  had  made  him  a  restive  candidate 
for  gubernatorial  honors ;  Gen.  Grubb,  who  set  up  the  plea  that 
his  selection  was  a  logical  sequence  of  the  ballot-box  frauds  of 
1889 ;  Franklin  Murphy,  a  rich  varnish-maker  of  Newark,  who 
had  once  served  in  the  Legislature,  and  ex-Congressman  John 
Kean,  Jr.,  who  had  been  persuaded  to  step  out  of  General 
Grubb's  way  in  1889,  on  the  understanding  that  the  nomination 
of  this  year  should  fall  to  him.  Mr.  Kean  was  a  man  of  enor- 
mous wealth,  a  pleasant  and  agreeable  companion,  and  a  sleek 
politician  who  had  won  his  spurs  in  several  notable  congres- 
sional campaigns. 

He  came  of  a  family  that  was  connected  with  some  of  the 
most  notable  in  society  and  public  affairs.  Hamilton  Fish,  ISec- 
retary  of  State  under  President  Grant,  was  of  his  kindred,  and 
the  Livingstones,  of  Revolutionary  memory,  were  among  his 
ancestors.  The  substantial  homestead  in  Elizabeth,  in  which 
he  consulted  with  his  political  lieutenants,  was  an  heirloom  from 
his  noted  Revolutionary  predecessors.  His  father  was  born  in 
it.  He  had  first  seen  the  light  of  day  in  it  himself,  and  neither 
had  ever  made  his  home  anywhere  else.  Besides  being  of  this 
line  of  old  grandees  and  to  the  manor  born,  he  had  proven 
his  political  skill  in  contests  for  Representative  in  Congress  from 
the  district  in  which  this  ancient  estate  of  his  family  lay.  The 
district  was  Democratic.  But  that  had  not  stood  in  the  way  of 
his  winning  the  seat  against  even  that  veteran  among  Democratic 
campaigners,  Miles  Ross,  as  the  result  of  his  first  engagement. 
He  was  then  but  twenty-eight  years  of  age,  and  among  the 
youngest  men  who  had  ever  sat  in  Congress.  Robert  S.  Green 
ran  against  him  when  he  sought  re  election  in  1884.  It  was  a 
Democratic  tidal- wave  year,  the  one  in  which  Grover  Cleveland 
was  chosen  to  live  in  the  White  House,  and  Kean  went  the  way 
of  all  things  Republican.  Two  years  later  he  girded  his  loins 
for  the  fray  again,  and  easily  vanquished  McMahon,  whom  the 
Democrats  set  up  against  him.  The  second  subsequent  year, 
when  he  asked  his  people  for  a  renewal  of  his  term  was  Presi- 
dential year  again,  and  he  went  down  bemath  the  Democratic 
■wave  that  swept  over  the  State. 


John  Kean,  Jr. 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.         429 

There  was  enough  in  this  record  to  convince  the  Republicans 
that  he  was  a  shrewd  and  successful  campaigner,  with  positive 
elements  of  strength  ;  and  the  delegates  to  the  State  Convention 
threw  Grubb  aside,  discarded  Magowan,  slighted  Murphy,  and 
placed  its  battle- flag  in  Mr.  Kean's  hands  to  be  planted  on  the 
ramparts  of  victory. 

The  battle  that  followed  the  completion  of  the  tickets  was  a 
notable  political  engagement.  Mr.  Kean,  in  his  tireless  quest  of 
votes,  found  the  people  in  a  state  of  revolt  against  the  abuses  of 
their  trusts  of  which  the  Democratic  State  and  local  managers 
had  been  guilty.  Governor  Abbett's  seizure  of  all  the  State 
prerogatives,  his  appointment  of  discredited  men  to  the  public 
places,  the  control  of  the  cities  by  gangs,  the  crimes  of  the 
ballot-box  stuffers,  the  open  defiance  of  law  by  the  race- track 
managers  at  Guttenberg  and  Gloucester  City,  the  sale  of  legis- 
lation, under  cover  of  a  party  service,  to  the  coal  combine ;  the 
character,  or  the  want  of  it,  of  the  men  who  made  up  the  sub- 
servient Legislatures ;  the  concessions  of  the  Democratic  leaders 
to  the  liquor  element ;  the  official  recognition  of  such  men  as 
"  Bob  "  Davis,  in  Hudson,  and  Thompson,  in  Camden,  and  the 
scheme  of  popular  disfranchisement  embraced  in  the  gerry- 
mander of  1891 ;  the  multiplication  of  sinecures,  the  inexcusable 
increases  of  salaries,  rumors  of  scandals  and  corruption  on 
every  hand,  had  determined  the  people  to  drive  the  whole 
wicked  crew  that  masqueraded  in  the  garb  of  Democracy  from 
power.  The  first  blow  in  that  direction  had  indeed  already 
been  struck  in  Jersey  City.  That  nest  of  official  vice  had 
in  the  charter  election  in  the  spring  been  handed  over  to  the 
control  of  Mayor  Wanser  and  the  Republicans,  though  the 
Democrats  had  tried  to  shield  themselves  from  the  attack  behind 
the  name  of  Allan  L.  McDermott.  The  canvass  had  been 
marked  by  a  great  revival  of  interest  in  local  affairs.  Mr.  Mc- 
Dermott in  his  addresses  boldly  denounced  the  Cleveland  ring 
that  had  plundered  the  city  right  and  left,  in  the  hope  of 
escaping  the  odium  that  those  conscienceless  manipulators  had 
brought  upon  the  party,  but  he  was  made  the  vicarious  sacrifice 
for  the  sins  of  that  discredited  regime.     Every  meeting  he  held 


430  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

was  a  crush.  The  crowds  listened  to  him — and  went  off  to  vote 
against  him.  The  capture  of  that  Democratic  stronghold  was 
an  augur  of  a  sweeping  Republican  victory  throughout  the  State 
in  the  fall,  and  Mr.  Kean  went  to  the  head  of  the  Republican 
columns  with  an  assurance  of  triumph  few  Republican  leaders 
had  dared  to  nurse. 

And  the  assurance  would  have  been  handsomely  redeemed  by 
the  gubernatorial  vote  but  for  the  conspicuously  shrewd  work 
of  the  Democratic  State  Committee,  under  the  leadership  of 
Chairman  McDermott,  in  tying  the  State  campaign  up  with  the 
national  campaign  in  such  a  way  that  they  seemed  to  be  insep- 
arable. 

With  the  other  Democratic  chieftains  Mr.  McDermott  saw  that 
the  Democracy  was  divided  against  itself,  but  that  the  spirit  of  the 
May  convention  was  abroad  in  the  State ;  that  the  masses  were 
even  more  eager  to  assist  Mr.  Cleveland  to  the  Presidency  of  the 
nation  than  they  were  to  punish  their  home  oppressors ;  and  he 
skillfully  parried  the  Republican  State  Committee's  State  issue 
campaign  with  an  equally  aggressive  campaign  on  national 
issues.  He  had  never  been  over- enamored  of  Mr.  Cleveland, 
but  he  saw  how  warmly  the  people  were  wedded  to  this  national 
idol  of  theirs.  It  was  a  foregone  conclusion  that  no  amount  of 
disaffection  on  State  questions  could  take  the  State  from  the 
national  Democratic  candidate,  and  if  Judge  Werts's  canvass 
could  be  linked  with  his,  the  battle  for  the  State  offices  might  be 
won  with  that  for  the  Electoral  College.  It  was  one  of  the 
shrewdest  of  McDermott's  many  shrewd  strokes  of  politics  to 
plan  to  have  Mr.  Cleveland  visit  New  Jersey  to  stand  as  sponsor 
to  the  people  for  Mr.  Werts. 

It  was  not  an  easy  thing  to  achieve.  Democratic  presidential 
candidates,  counting  New  Jersey  as  one  of  the  never-failing 
Democratic  States,  are  not  in  the  habit  of  spending  any  of  their 
time  upon  her.  Senator  McPherson  was  disposed  to  believe 
that  a  visit  by  Mr.  Cleveland  would  be  interpreted  as  a  sign 
that  he  feared  that  even  New  Jersey  was  in  danger,  and,  because 
the  effect  upon  the  vote  in  other  States  would  be  disastrous,  he 
was  of  the   view    that   the   National  Committee   should   ad- 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  431 

vise  him  not  to  yield  to  Mr.  McDermott's  solicitations.  The 
portly  State  Committee  Chairman  persisted,  however,  and  found 
a  fresh  argument  in  the  visit  Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid,  the  Republican 
Vice  Presidential  candidate,  had  paid  to  Jersey  City  in  the  midst 
of  the  campaign.  McDermott's  constant  importunities  pre- 
vailed at  last,  and  Mr.  Cleveland  arranged  to  go  to  Jersey  City 
towards  the  close  of  the  campaign.  He  was  announced  as  the 
guest  of  Governor  Werts,  and  Senator  McPherson  rode  in  the 
coach  with  him  to  chaperone  him.  Monster  receptions  were 
held  in  the  brownstone  club  house  of  the  aristocratic  Hudson 
Democratic  Society  and  under  the  four-acre  shed  of  the  Oakland 
Rink.  No  man  ever  received  such  an  ovation  as  was  paid  to 
the  distinguished  visitor.  Torchlight  processions  turned  the 
night  into  day.  The  houses  were  illuminated  from  cellar  to 
garret.  There  were  music  and  flags  all  around.  Admiring  and 
cheering  throngs  made  the  streets  impassable.  The  incoming 
trains  were  crowded  with  the  flower  of  the  citizenship  of  the 
State,  and  before  he  was  led  to  his  carriage  to  return  to  New 
York  he  made  a  little  speech,  of  course,  and  in  the  little  speech 
he  managed  to  drop  a  cheerful  word  for  the  pleasant- faced  gen- 
tleman at  his  elbow,  the  Democratic  candidate  for  Governor. 

The  State  campaign  caught  the  luster  of  that  demonstration. 
People  could  find  no  excuse  for  Mr.  Cleveland's  advent  among 
them  unless  it  had  been  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  Judge  Werts, 
and  it  began  to  be  reasoned  that  the  man  for  whom  one  of  Mr. 
Cleveland's  distinction  would  do  so  much  must  be  worthy  of 
their  sufirages.  The  brightened  aspect  of  the  Democratic  cam- 
paign was  the  direct  result  of  that  visit,  and  Mr.  Cleveland  had 
scarcely  gotten  back  to  his  hotel  in  New  York  before  the  clouds 
that  hung  over  the  State  canvass  were  seen  to  be  drifting  away. 

At  the  end  of  the  campaign  Mr.  McDermott  made  his  master- 
stroke in  Judge  Werts's  behalf  by  a  signal  use  of  the  sentiment 
of  admiration  for  Mr.  Cleveland  that  had  so  unmistakably 
manifested  itself.  The  opportunity  came  to  him  accidentally. 
The  practical  campaign  work  of  the  Republicans  was  done  in 
the  capacious  parlors  of  the  Federal  Club  House,  a  few  hundred 
feet  distant  from  Mr.  McDermott's  residence,  on  Jersey  City 


432  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

Heights.  A  picturesque  rumor  says  that  one  night  while  he 
was  sitting  in  his  study  he  noticed  a  great  throng  of  unusually 
active  men  in  the  club-house,  and  that  by  the  use  of  his  field- 
glass  he  discovered  that  they  were  pasting  thousands  and  thou- 
sands of  ballots  and  preparing  them  for  distribution.  Further 
inquiry  showed  him  that  the  Republican  managers  had  prepared 
these  ballots  for  special  distribution  among  the  Cleveland  voters 
in  the  State.  They  knew  that  there  was  no  hope  of  inducing 
the  voters  to  vote  for  the  Republican  candidate  for  President ; 
but  they  were  also  convinced  that  the  mass  of  the  suffragists 
were  prepared  to  strike  down  the  rest  of  the  Democratic  ticket. 
And  they  had  been  busy,  on  the  evening  Mr.  McDermott  looked 
in  upon  them  with  his  field- glass,  covering  the  names  of  the 
Republican  electors  on  their  ballots  with  pasters  bearing  the 
names  of  the  Cleveland  electors,  but  still  leaving  the  names  of 
their  candidates  for  State  offices  intact ;  and  two  days  before 
election  they  had  these  ballots  in  the  hands  of  every  voter  in 
the  State. 

The  morning  before  election  Mr.  McDermott  published  an 
address  to  the  Democratic  voters  of  the  State,  cautioning  them 
against  the  use  of  these  ballots.  He  backed  up  his  claim  that 
they  might  be  defective  and  a  violation  of  the  Ballot  Reform 
law,  which  seemed  not  to  contemplate  the  use  of  blanket  pasters 
but  only  the  pasting  of  each  objectionable  name  singly,  with  an 
opinion  of  ex- Governor  Bedle,  and  cautioned  the  Cleveland 
voters  of  the  State  that  if  they  used  the  ballots  the  Republicans 
had  prepared  for  them  they  ran  the  chance  of  throwing  away 
their  votes  and  imperiling  Cleveland's  majority  in  the  State. 
The  effect  of  this  warning  was  simply  electrical.  The  Cleveland 
devotees  were  not  disposed  to  take  any  chance  of  error  in  their 
battle  for  Cleveland,  and  practically  none  of  these  half-and-half 
ballots  were  used  by  them.  To  be  safe  rather  than  sorry  they 
swallowed  their  indignation  against  their  State  rulers  and  in 
their  eagerness  to  serve  their  National  candidate  used  only  the 
straight  Democratic  ticket. 

The  vote  was  taken  amid  considerable  excitement.  The 
count  of  the  ballot  showed  that  President  Cleveland's  visit  to 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  433 

the  State,  supplemented  by  Chairman  McDermott's  skillful 
stroke  at  the  close  of  the  campaign,  had  saved  the  State  to  the 
Democrats,  and  that  Judge  Werts  had  the  lead  over  the  smiling 
ex-Congressman  from  the  Third  district.  Mr.  Cleveland  swept 
the  State  by  a  majority  of  about  14,000;  Judge  Werts  carried 
it  by  a  maj  )rity  of  about  7,000.  It  was  noticeable  that  in  the 
communities  that  had  felt  the  oppression  of  the  Abbett  rule 
most  severely,  Mr.  Werts's  lead  was  reduced — as,  for  instance, 
Essex,  which  Cleveland  carried  for  the  Democratic  National 
ticket  and  Kean  carried  for  the  Republican  State  ticket. 

28 


CHAPTER    XXXV. 

Which  Explains  Why   the   Courtly   James  Smith,  Jr.,   op   Essex, 

Vowing  He'd  Ne'er  Consent,  Consented  to   be   United 

States  Senator  in  Governor  Abbett's  Stead.. 


HE  lines  for  the  coming  battle  for  the  Senatorship  were 
now  all  laid  down.  Judge  Werts's  election  to  the 
Governorship  pointed  out  the  man  who  was  to  domi- 
nate the  autocracy  during  that  eventful  fortnight  for 
which  Abbett  would  have  to  surrender  it  before  he  could  achieve 
the  object  for  which  he  had  created  it.  The  pregnant  inquiry 
on  all  hands  was  whether  the  new  Governor  would  wield  the 
great  prerogatives  that  were  to  come  to  his  hands  for  the  pro- 
motion of  Mr.  Abbett's  interests.  The  new  Governor's  friends 
and  enemies  never  lost  an  opportunity  to  sound  him  as  to  his 
preference,  but  he  met  all  their  inquiries  mutely  until,  in  the 
small  hours  of  a  banqueting  night  at  Taylor's  Hotel,  in  Jersey 
City,  a  few  weeks  after  his  election,  he  hailed  Governor  Abbett, 
who  sat  at  his  elbow,  as  the  next  United  States  Senator  from 
New  Jersey.  It  was  immediately  guessed  that  the  autocracy 
was  to  be  conducted  on  the  Abbett  lines  right  up  to  the  hour 
for  the  assembling  of  the  joint  meeting  that  was  to  elect  the  new 
Senator,  and  Mr.  Abbett's  friends  were  confident  that  he  could 
not  be  beaten  in  this  fight. 

Why  shouldn't  he  win  ?  Who  was  there  against  him  ?  If 
he  were  not  to  be  the  choice  of  the  caucus,  where  was  there  a 
man  in  sight  who  would  be  taken  in  his  stead  ?  Off  in  the  dis- 
tance was  the  sleek  and  portly  figure  of  James  Smith,  Jr. 
Some  people  had  been  insisting  that  perhaps  he  might  be  the 
successful  competitor.  Abbett  and  his  cabinet  scouted  the  sug- 
gestion. They  insisted  that  Mr.  Smith  had  sworn  eternal  friend- 
ship for  Leon  Abbett  with  his  hand  uplifted.  Mr.  Abbett  him- 
(434) 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.         435 

«elf  said  that  he  could  not  believe  that  this  rising  figure  in  the 
politics  of  the  State  and  nation  would  willingly  stand  in  his 
way.  While  the  controversy  was  going  on  the  chubby-faced 
Essex  potentate  took  a  little  trip  South  for  his  health.  James 
F.  Connelly  and  some  other  followers  and  adherents  of  his 
seized  upon  the  opportunity  to  take  the  canvass  out  of  his 
iiands  and  to  make  him  a  rival  of  the  Governor's  whether  he 
wanted  to  be  or  not.  Miles  Ross,  smarting  under  the  veto  of 
the  Coal  Combine  bill,  sent  word  that  if  he  would  enter  the 
lists  Middlesex  and  Monmouth  and  Somerset  would  join  his 
Essex  followers.  Thompson,  of  Camden,  remembering  Mr. 
Abbett's  veto  of  the  race-track  measures,  volunteered  to  turn 
the  South  Jersey  Democrats  into  the  column.  Cleveland  men 
everywhere,  with  a  lively  gratitude  for  the  assistance  Mr.  Smith 
had  lent  them  in  taking  the  control  of  the  May  convention  out 
of  Mr.  Abbett's  hands,  and  pleased  by  the  favor  with  which  he 
had  been  received  by  the  Cleveland  managers  at  Chicago,  threw 
up  their  hats  and  declared  that  no  other  man  than  Smith  would 
meet  the  demands  of  the  hour.  The  object  of  all  this  adulation 
was  hunted  through  Southern  forests  and  marshes  to  learn  if  he 
would  not  be  persuaded  to  accept  the  universal  homage  of  the 
people  and  become  a  candidate.  He  said  "  No  "  less  firmly  than 
he  had  been  wont  to  say  it.  It  was  a  flattering  demonstration 
of  popular  desire  that  he  could  not  toss  aside.  He  was  a  man 
of  the  people  whose  tactical  concessions  to  popular  movements 
had  given  him  the  strength  which  he  held  in  the  party's  councils. 
How  could  he  say  "  No  "  to  this  new  manifestation  of  popular 
desire  ?  How,  indeed  ?  He  couldn't.  But  he  didn't  say 
^'Yes." 

Then  there  was  a  long  pause  of  doubt  and  uncertainty  pending 
his  return  to  his  home  in  Newark.  His  friends  were  hopeful 
that  he  might  be  persuaded.  Abbett's  cabinet  began  to  fear 
that  he  might  yield.  Quite  as  much  as  over  the  uncertainty  of 
his  attitude  were  they  aroused  over  complications  encountered  at 
the  vital  point  in  their  campaign.  No  senatorial  candidate 
<30uld  hope  to  win  the  favor  of  the  joint  caucus  unless  he  were 
warmly  supported  by  the  delegation  from  his  own  county.    Mr. 


436  MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 

Abbett'd  friends  tried  to  whip  the  Assemblyman  from  Hudson 
into  a  local  caucus  for  the  purpose  of  having  them  declare  their 
readiness  to  support  him  in  the  joint  meeting.  They  were  dis- 
couraged when  they  found  it  impossible.  Mr.  Edward  F.  C. 
Young  was  busy  among  the  members  working  his  revenge  for 
Abbett's  movements  against  him  is  the  Gubernatorial  Conven- 
tion. Mr.  Young  had  but  to  hold  his  hand  up  to  make  the  Hud- 
son delegation  go  where  he  willed.  He  kept  them  at  bay  and 
apart  and  divided,  until  Mr.  Smith  returned  to  his  mansion  on 
Washington  Place,  Newark.  The  day  after  he  had  arrived  Mr. 
Young  tapped  the  doorbell  and  was  shown  at  once  to  Mr.  Smith's 
reception- room,  and  there  these  two  antagonists  of  yesterday 
laid  the  plans  for  the  final  blow  to  Governor  Abbett's  cherished 
ambition.  Mr.  Young  assured  Mr.  Smith  that  he  would  never 
permit  the  Hudson  delegation  to  support  Abbett,  and  Mr.  Smith 
was  politician  enough  to  see  that  without  such  support  Abbett's 
fight  was  hopeless.  As  long  as  there  was  a  chance  for  the 
Governor  securing  the  coveted  prize,  he  had  pledged  himself  not 
to  stand  in  his  way ;  but  if  the  Governor  were  driven  out  of 
the  field  by  forces  which  Mr.  Smith  had  not  created  nor  could 
control,  why  should  not  Mr.  Smith  permit  the  scattered  forces  to 
rally  around  him  ?  The  hesitating  "  no  "  became  "  yes,"  now, 
and  when  Mr.  Young  left  the  house  he  had  Mr.  Smith's  assur- 
ance that  Mr.  Young  and  all  who  were  disposed  to  might  con- 
eider  him  as  a  senatorial  possibility. 

Before  the  time  the  Legislature  was  ready  to  assemble  it  was 
evident  that  the  formal  action  of  a  party  caucus  was  not  neces- 
sary to  make  the  name  of  the  new  Senator  known.  Governor 
Abbett's  lieutenants  had  leagued  to  defeat  him  with  the  pleasant- 
faced  Newark  statesman.  When  the  caucus  was  called,  Allan 
McDermott,  the  truest  of  Abbett's  friends,  saw  certain  defeat 
ahead,  and  he  sought  the  Governor  for  consultation.  The  dis- 
appointed man  was  white  and  haggard  with  despair.  But  his 
jaw  was  firmly  set,  and  he  would  listen  to  no  talk  of  withdrawal. 

"  I'll  not  withdraw,"  he  said  doggedly  between  his  set  teeth 
to  McDermott,  "  but  you  can  do  as  you  please." 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.         437 

"  Then,"  the  loyal  young  lieutenant  responded,  "  I'll  take  the 
responsibility  of  withdrawing  your  name  myself." 

The  old  guard — a  little  handful  of  the  faithful — was  hastened 
to  the  Governor's  room,  and  there  McDermott  made  confession 
to  them  of  the  hopelessness  of  their  struggle,  and  absolved  them 
from  their  allegiance.  Mr.  Smith  was  called  from  a  near  room, 
and  a  formal  speech  of  surrender  was  made  by  McDerniott. 
The  coming  man  smiled  beneficently,  expressed  his  gratification 
at  the  new  accessions  to  his  ranks,  thanked  the  little  throng  for 
their  support  and  preference  and  bowed  them  out. 

Thus  the  work  of  the  caucus  was  made  easy,  and  less  than 
half  an  hour  after  the  doors  of  the  big  new  Assembly  Chamber 
— the  Chamber  which  Mr.  Abbett  had  planned  and  built  for 
the  State — had  closed  on  the  conferees,  a  little  whisper  crept 
through  the  corridors  of  the  State  House  that  Mr.  Smith  had 
been  named  to  be  Senator  Blodgett's  successor.  Two  days  later, 
the  two  Houses  voted  separately.  Senator  Barrett,  of  Essex, 
presented  Mr.  Smith's  name  to  the  Senate ;  Lane,  of  Union, 
presented  it  to  the  Assembly.  Each  branch  gave  him  a  majority 
over  General  Sewell,  who  had  been  accorded  the  empty  honor 
of  the  Republican  caucus  nomination  ;  and  two  days  later  the 
Houses  assembled  in  joint  meeting  to  read  their  respective 
journal  and  to  hear  President  Robert  Adrain  formally  declare 
Mr.  Smith  New  Jersey's  new  representative  in  the  United  States 
Senate  for  the  six  years  commencing  March  4th,  1893. 

The  career  of  the  phenomenally-successful  man  who  slid  so 
smoothly  into  this  commanding  position  has  been  traced  in  a 
measure  already.  He  had  come  from  a  public- spirited  family 
in  Newark.  His  father,  still  alive  to  see  his  son  advanced  to 
his  great  distinction,  had  been  himself  a  prosperous  business 
man,  and  in  his  earlier  years  a  member  of  Assembly.  The 
new  Senator  had  accumulated  a  fortune  in  the  manufacture  of 
leather  at  Newark.  Brown-eyed  and  rosy-cheeked,  with  a  round, 
smiling,  boy-like  face,  and  yet  of  commanding  preseuce,  tall  and 
portly,  smooth  of  tongue,  non- combative  and  yielding,  of  capti- 
vating address  and  consummate  tact  in  dealing  with  men,  he 
easily  made  himself  popular  when  he  set  out  to  indulge  his  benb" 


438  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

for  public  affairs.  While  a  member  of  the  Newark  Council,  he 
was  marked  as  one  head  and  shoulders  among  his  fellow-mem- 
bers, and  they  saw  instinctively  that  he  was  on  the  sure  way  to 
higher  honors.  He  was  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  on  terms  of  personal  intimacy  with  the  chiefs  in  the- 
Diocese,  and  a  liberal  giver  to  every  charity.  When  he  turned 
his  eyes  towards  politics,  he  went  deeply  into  his  purse  for 
campaign  expenses  and  grew  apace  in  prominence  and  influence. 
He  had  become  so  conspicuous  a  figure  in  local  politics  that 
when  only  the  presentation  of  its  most  acceptable  men  could 
save  his  party  from  threatened  defeat,  he  was  importuned  to 
accept  the  Mayoralty  of  Newark ;  but  he  was  too  busy  a  man  ta 
assume  the  duties  of  the  position,  and  he  was  forced  to  decline. 

His  recognized  influence  in  Essex  county  politics  had  pointed 
him  out  to  Governor  Abbett,  when  he  was  building  up  hi& 
autocracy,  as  an  efficient  aid,  and  he  made  him  one  of  the  pillars 
of  the  temple.  His  smooth  and  insinuating  address  easily 
enabled  him  to  take  front  rank  among  the  chiefs  of  State  to 
whose  councils  he  was  thus  called,  and  he  was  soon  recognized 
everywhere  as  one  of  the  greater  figures  in  the  larger  field  of 
activity  to  which  he  had  been  summoned.  When  he  reached 
the  Senate,  he  at  once  commanded  the  attention  of  the  nation^ 
by  his  attitude  on  the  pending  Tariff  bill,  and  within  a  year 
had  made  his  name  as  well  known  throughout  the  land  as  that 
of  any  of  the  veterans  of  politics  who  sat  with  him. 

Governor  Abbett's  career  was  practically  ended  with  this  second 
defeat  of  his  lifelong  ambition.  Judge  Werts's  accession  to  the 
Governorship  had  made  a  vacancy  on  the  Supreme  Court  Bench  ; 
in  filling  it  he  gracefully  yielded  to  popular  desire  by  naming 
Judge  Job  H.  Lippincoit.  It  was  the  reward  of  the  Judge's 
splendid  services  for  the  State  in  connection  with  the  ballot-box 
prosecutions.  A  few  weeks  later  Supreme  Court  Judge  Edward 
W.  Scudder  died  at  his  home  in  Trenton.  Mr.  Abbett  was 
quite  willing  that  the  Governor  should  name  him  for  this  unex- 
pected vacancy.  Mr.  Abbett's  implacable  foes  were  disposed  to 
deprive  him  of  the  small  recognition,  but  the  nomination  was 
eventually  made  and  confirmed.     The  ex-Governor  developed 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         439 


admirable  traits  as  a  Judge.  Tireless  as  ever  in  the  discharge  of 
his  public  duties,  and  keen,  able  and  informed,  he  made  a  new 
name  for  himself  on  the  Bench.  His  new  honors  were  not, 
however,  of  long  duration.  An  incurable  disease  had  been  sap- 
ping his  health  for  years,  and  one  day  towards  the  close  of  1 894 
the  State  was  startled  by  the  announcement  of  his  serious  illness 
at  his  home  on  Jersey  avenue,  in  Jersey  City.  The  anxious 
friends  who  rushed  to  make  an  offer  of  their  services  a  day  or 
two  later  were  met  at  the  door  with  the  sad  information  that  he 
had  passed  away. 

Two  months  earlier,  the  body  of  his  old-time  rival.  Governor 
Bedle,  had  been  bornejto^its  grave  from  the  handsome  home  on 
the  opposite  corner.  The  two  Governors  had  been  neighbors 
during  all  their  active  careers,  and  friends,  though  their  lives 
had  led  them  into  warring  factional  camps.  For  years  they 
lived  in  adjoining  houses  in  old  Sussex  Place.  The  decay  of  the 
neighborhood  prompted  Bedle  to  move ;  but  Abbett,  who  was 
posing  as  the  friend  of  the  workingmen  at  the  time,  had  kept 
open  house  there  till  his  second  accession  to  the  Governorship. 
Mr.  Bedle  had  purchased  the  old  Jewell  homestead,  on  one  of 
the  Jersey  avenue  corners  of  Montgomery  street.  When  Mr. 
Abbett  moved  it  was  to  the  brown-stone  front  on  the  opposite 
corner.  And  there  they  lived,  vis  a  vis,  till  a  chronic  dis- 
order forced  Bedle  to  the  operating  table  two  months  before 
Governor  Abbett's  death,  and  he  succumbed  to  the  shock  of  the 
knife. 


CHAPTER   XXXVI. 

Which  Tells  the  Story  of  the  Kaid  of  the  Jockeys  Upon  the 

State  Government,  and  op  What  They  Did  With  it 

When  They  Had  Captured  it. 


m 

HOSE  who  realized  the  strength  of  the  Democratic  cur- 
rent set  in  motion  in  1892  by  the  popular  devotion  to 
the  candidacy  of  President  Cleveland  were  not  sur- 
prised at  the  character  of  the  men  who  drifted  into  the 
State  offices  on  the  tide.  Everything  that  was  uncanny  in  Demo- 
cratic politics  had  been  tossed  to  the  bosom  of  the  flood,  and  the 
legislative  salvage  of  the  sweeping  tide  was  as  unsavory  as  it 
could  be.  The  gangs  that  controlled  cities,  the  upstart  bosses  who 
ruled  counties,  the  public  plotters,  schemers  and  corruptionists, 
had  seen  their  opportunity,  and  launched  their  confederates  and 
henchmen  and  fellow- conspirators  on  the  stream  with  the  assur- 
ance that  the  drift  would  safely  bear  them  to  port.  Goldsmith's 
village  pedant  could  not  more  accurately  "  times  and  tides  pre- 
sage" than  did  these  shrewd  calculators  the  time  and  tide  the 
favoring  campaign  of  1892  turned  to  their  advantage.  Almost 
every  Democrat  who  floated  to  a  seat  in  either  House  of  the 
Legislature  in  1893  represented  a  ring,  or  one  of  the  disrepu- 
table bosses,  or  a  'ph,  or  had  been  tempted  to  his  candidacy  by 
the  hope  of  illegitimate  gain.  Thompson,  the  owner  of  the 
ill- flavored  race-track  at  Gloucester  City,  came  up  from  Camden 
to  sit  in  one  of  the  Assembly  chairs;  Dr.  Henry,  who  came 
with  him  as  a  colleague,  was  his  ally.  Harrigan,  Clarke,  Byrne, 
Olvaney,  Kearns,  among  the  Essex  spokesmen,  were  the  legisla- 
tive outposts  for  the  Haynes  Municipal  Ring  in  Essex ;  Kelly, 
Ditmar,  "Teddy"  Carroll,  Lawless,  Dr.  Stout,  Coyle,  Tahen 
and  Zeller,  of  Hudson,  owed  their  seats  to  the  favor  of  the 
ballot-box  stuffing  machine  in  Hudson.  Carroll  was  a  gambler's 
(440) 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON. 


441 


feook-maker  on  the  Gloucester  track,  and  drew  a  salary  beside 
as  an  official  in  the  Ring  city  government  in  Jersey  City. 
Lanning,  of  Mercer,  was  a  contractor  favored  by  the  State  Ring. 
Beekman,  Daly  and  Warne,  of  Middlesex,  and  Strahan  and 
Honce,  of  Monmouth,  had  been  tarred  by  the  coal  combine  vote. 
Smith,  of  Passaic,  was  another  of  the  coal  combine  supporters; 
his  Passaic  colleague,  Fiynn,  was  the  "  starter"  at  $100  per  day 
on  Thompson's  race- course.  Kelly,  of  Union,  was  the  distinct 
product  of  the 
gang  that  held 
the  city  of  Eliz- 
abeth by  the 
throat. 

Thus  every- 
thing that  was 
venal  or  corrupt 
or  offensive  in 
the  manage- 
ment of  public 
aff'airs  was 
largely  reflected 
in  the  Legisla- 
ture ;  and  the 
lawless  ground- 
lings who  had 
succeeded  in 
securing  the 
ascendancy  in 
State  and 
county  and  city, 
found  license 
for  fresh  excesses 


Thomas  Flynn. 


It  was  typical  of  the  whole  sitting  that 
Flynn  was  made  the  Speaker  of  the  Assembly,  and  the  sound 
of  his  falling  gavel  sent  a  tremor  of  alarm  throughout  the  State. 
And  when  Adrain  was  re  elected  to  the  Presidency  of  the  Sen- 
ate, it  was  argued  from  his  activity  in  forcing  the  passage  of  the 
<3oal  combine  bill  that  the  Senate  was  to  be  the  fit  complement 
of  the  Assembly  in  its  legislative  excesses. 


442  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

The  session  began  with  an  extravagance  in  the  employment  of 
a  needless  retinue  of  attendants,  that  showed  its  trend.  Half  a 
score  of  doorkeepers  were  assigned  to  the  care  of  each  door  in 
the  Assembly  Chamber.  There  were  more  pages  than  members. 
The  desks  of  the  Clerks  of  both  Houses  were  hidden  beneath  a 
pile  of  bills  creating  sinecures,  increasing  salaries,  prolonging 
tenures,  changing  governments,  ousting  incumbents  that  refused 
to  bend  the  knee  to  the  gangs,  opening  the  doors  of  the  munici- 
pal and  county  and  State  treasuries  to  the  invading  vandals — 
helping  along,  in  every  conceivable  way,  the  unholy  invasion  of 
private  rights  for  which  the  control  of  the  public  places  afforded 
opportunity.  It  is  neither  the  purpose  nor  possible  in  a  work 
of  the  scope  of  this  to  enter  upon  the  detailed  description  of 
their  saturnalia.  It  would  involve  an  exposition  of  local  affairs 
which  have  no  necessary  connection  with  the  State's  history 
except  in  their  general  effect.  It  must  suffice  to  say  generally 
that  no  private  right  that  could  be  stolen,  nor  any  public  pre- 
rogative that  had  been  overlooked  by  preceding  legislation  in 
the  interest  of  the  shameless  rulers,  was  left  unattacked. 

But  there  was  an  incident  of  this  legislative  session  that  gave 
a  decided  drift  to  public  sentiment  and  in  the  end  changed  the 
whole  current  of  State  history.  The  aggressive  race- track 
element  had  been  restive  ever  since  Governor  Abbett  had  refused 
to  yield  to  it  in  1890.  It  had  made  a  second  attempt  to  secure 
favorable  legislation,  and  had  secured  the  introduction  of  an  act 
that  put  the  State  into  partnership  with  the  "  bookies "  by 
enacting  that  she  should  have  half  the  gate  moneys  for  licensing 
the  race- tracks.  But  it  had  been  defeated  by  just  such  a  demon- 
stration as  that  which  had  urged  Governor  Abbett  to  his  veto 
of  two  years  before.  Rev.  Dr.  Kempshall  did  not  lead  it  this 
time,  because  he  was  in  Europe.  Lawyer  Richard  V.  Linda- 
bury,  of  Elizabeth,  marshaled  the  protesting  army,  however, 
with  equal  skill  and  led  a  memorable  gathering  into  the  Assem- 
bly which  had  the  act  in  its  keeping.  With  the  throng  was  a 
delegation  of  thirty  ladies,  to  whom  the  Committee  of  the  Whole 
listened.  Mrs.  Knowles,  wife  of  Rev.  Dr.  Knowles,  of  Eliz- 
abeth, was  the  noted  one  in  the  galaxy  of  opposition  orators^ 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.         443 

. V 

Her  speech  in  behalf  of  the  women  of  the  State  won  a  wide 
reputation  for  her.  When  the  members  had  heard  her  and  the 
others,  they  decided  to  let  the  bill  go  no  farther,  and  it  was^ 
never  heard  of  afterwards. 

Meanwhile,  however,  the  State  was  being  treated  to  the  spec- 
tacle of  the  race- tracks  at  Guttenberg  and  Gloucester  kept 
open  the  year  around  in  defiance  of  law.  Their  audacity  and' 
the  fabulous  magnitude  of  their  earnings  had  turned  the  eyes  of 
the  jockeys  of  the  East  upon  New  Jersey,  and  they  came  to 
regard  her  as  their  Eldorado.  It  was  said  that  an  abandoned 
pacing  stretch  at  Clifton,  in  Passaic  county,  was  also  preparing 
to  re- open  under  the  protection  of  a  grand  jury.  Tracks  were 
laid  out  at  Linden  and  Elizabeth,  in  Union  county ;  and  Mon- 
mouth Park  impatiently  saw  her  gates  closed  by  the  law  to  her 
brilliant  July  throng  of  patrons,  while  less  showy  gambling 
courses  coined  money  in  defiance  of  the  law  for  their  more- 
reckless  proprietors. 

Monmouth's  failure  to  "run  off"  her  usual  events  in  1892: 
had  given  the  people  of  the  surrounding  country  an  object 
lesson  as  to  the  financial  and  business  value  of  race- courses, 
which  was  reflected  in  a  perceptible  popular  sentiment  in  favor 
of  permissive  legislation.  The  great  seaside  resorts  about  had 
been  robbed  of  their  crowds  and  their  midsummer  gaiety. 
Long  Branch,  where  the  effect  w£is  most  notable,  was  like  a  ban- 
quet hall  deserted.  Her  big  caravansaries,  centers  of  gaiety, 
activity  and  color,  the  year  before,  were  empty.  Hackmen,. 
farmers,  traders,  among  whom  the  gaudy  throng  had  thrown  their 
money  with  lavish  hand,  were  disheartened.  It  was  to  meet 
this  local  sentiment  for  permissive  legislation  that  Parker,  of 
Monmouth,  had  in  1891  introduced  the  bills  that  Governor 
Abbett  had  defeated  with  his  veto.  The  Gloucester  and  Gutten- 
berg sports  had  not  been  deeply  interested  in  the  success  of  the 
relieving  legislation  at  that  time.  One  was  protected  by  a  Judge 
who  would  not  punish;  the  other  by  a  grand  jury  that  would 
not  indict.  It  was  even  intimated  that  Guttenberg  was  not 
averse  to  having  this  particular  form  of  gambling  denied  the 
countenance  of  the  law.     To  legalize  racing  was  to  open  other 


444  MODERN  BATTLES  OF   TRENTON. 

tracks  and  to  destroy  the  audacious  monopoly  out  of  which  its 
managers  had  so  long  been  growing  rich. 

But  the  pictures  of  these  two  lawless  resorts  at  Gloucester  and 
<jruttenberg  in  full  swing,  while  grass  grew  rank  upon  the  turf 
in  front  of  the  noble  grand  stand  at  Monmouth,  made  a  con- 
trast that  chafed  and  inflamed  the  better  sentiment  of  the  State. 
The  conviction  of  the  ballot-box  stuffers,  upon  whose  work  had 
rested  the  title  of  the  Sheriff  who  drew  favoring  grand  juries 
in  Hudson  county,  and  the  defeat  of  the  Democratic  Mayor  in 
Jersey  City  by  a  Republican,  were  signs  of  peril  to  which  these 
defiers  of  the  law  could  not  close  their  eyes.  The  attacks  made 
by  law-abiding  citizens  upon  the  resorts  were  daily  growing 
more  determined  and  more  aggressive.  Rev.  John  L.  Scudder, 
a  public- spirited  Congregational  minister  of  Jersey  City,  headed 
a  crusade  upon  Guttenberg .  so  damaging  and  effective,  and 
Thompson,  of  the  Gloucester  course,  was  haled  for  punishment 
before  the  Camden  courts  so  often,  that  both  felt  it  necessary  to 
join  hands  with  other  race-track  managers  to  secure  legislative 
protection.  They  had  all  bent  their  energies  in  the  campaign  of 
1892  to  the  choice  of  complaisant  men  to  the  Legislature  of 
1893,  with  that  end  in  view ;  and  a  horsey  flavor  was  percepti- 
ble in  the  State  House  the  moment  the  two  Houses  assembled 
for  the  business  of  the  winter. 

The  election  to  the  House  Speakership  of  Starter  Flynn,  of 
the  Gloucester  race- track,  was  the  first  step  in  the  game.  The 
session  had  progressed  some  weeks  before  the  next  was  taken. 
Then  it  was  Parker,  of  Monmouth,  who  stepped  into  the  breach 
again,  this  time  with  three  companion  Assembly  acts,  which  en- 
abled the  authorities  of  a  county  or  a  town  to  license  a  race-track 
within  its  limits,  which  took  a  course  where  bets  were  made  out 
of  the  category  of  disorderly  houses,  in  which  a  ruling  of  Judge 
Dixon  had  placed  it,  and  which  visited  violations  of  the  gambling 
laws  of  the  State  with  trifling  and  inconsiderable  fines.  Sin- 
gularly enough  the  presentation  of  these  bills  did  not  arouse  the 
storm  of  excitement  that  even  the  promoters  of  the  bills  them- 
selves expected  to  see  sweep  the  State.  Only  a  little  handful  of 
2;ealots  ran  off"  to  the  State  House  to  make  protest  against  their 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


445 


passage.  In  their  behalf  Assemblyman  Thomas  F.  Lane,  of 
Union,  remarking  that  it  was  common  scandal  that  the  Legis- 
lature was  owned  by  the  race-track  gamblers,  made  a  demand 
for  a  public  hearing.  Barton  B.  Hutchinson,  a  fair- haired  Re- 
publican lawyer,  who  sat  in  one  of  the  Mercer  county  seats,. 
joined  with  the  fiery  Union  man  in  making  the  demand.  Har- 
rigan,  of  Essex,  quizzically  remarked  that  he  couldn't  for  the 
life  of  him  see  what  there  was  so  bad  about  the  bills,  and  the 
sputtering  Beekman,  of  Middlesex,  spoke  in  a  strain  which  in- 
dicated his  sympathy 
with  the  touts  among 
his  colleagues. 

It  was  when  Thomp- 
son, who  had  really  in- 
spired the  acts,  walked 
out  into  the  aisle  to  de- 
liver himself,  that  the 
high-handed  policy 
which  Speaker  Flynn 
was  expected  to  aid  in 
carrying  out  was  fore- 
shadowed. The  Glou- 
cester magnate  flew  at 
the  young  Union  As- 
semblyman like  a  tiger. 
Lane  had  taken  his 
money  for  campaign 
use,  he  said,  and  now 
he  was  opposing  his  pet  bill.  Lane  made  an  angry  retort,  and 
the  discussion  was  at  an  end.  How  well  the  racing  men  had 
the  Assembly  in  hand  was  revealed  by  the  vote  on  this  simple 
request  that  the  opponents  of  the  bills  be  accorded  a  hearing. 
Lane's  motion  was  defeased  by  thirty-two  votes,  cast  by  Assem- 
blymen Armitage,  Beekman,  Byrne,  Carroll,  Chamberlain, 
Clarke,  Coyle,  Cramer,  Daly,  Dittmar,  Diver,  Dupuy,  Flynn, 
Harrigan,  Henry,  Kearns,  H.  A.  Kelly,  T.  M.  Kelly,  Lanning, 


Thomas  F.  Lane. 


446  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

Lawless,  Olvaney,  Packer,  Parker,  Sheppard,  Stout,  Swartwout, 
TaheD,  Thompson,  Utter,  Warne,  Wright  and  Zaller. 

During  the  discussion  Speaker  FJynn  curled  his  lip  con- 
temptuously and  made  a  sneering  reference  to  the  protesting 
throng  as  one  made  up  of  "  old  women  and  dominies."  Stag- 
gered by  this  gratuitous  insult  at  the  honest  mothers  and  sisters 
and  daughters  of  the  Commonwealth,  Lane  stood  for  a  moment 
like  one  at  bay  in  the  middle  aisle  of  the  big  Chamber.  The 
happy  response  soon  sprang  to  his  tongue,  however. 

"  The  Speaker  will  remember,"  he  said  with  impressive  em- 
phasis, "  that  the  hand  that  rocks  the  cradle  rules  the  world." 

It  was  a  stinging  reproach,  and  the  packed  galleries  fairly 
howled  with  enthusiasm  as  they  heard  it.  The  plan  formed  in 
anticipation  of  a  great  popular  uprising,  was  to  rush  the  bills 
through  before  the  protest,  for  which  Lane  hoped  to  pave  the 
way,  could  take  shape ;  and,  under  suspension  of  the  rules,  the 
acts  were  whipped  through  and  hastened  to  the  Senate  Chamber. 
The  consenting  affirmative  votes  were  cast  by  Byrne,  Carroll, 
Chamberlin,  Clarke,  Coyle,  Daly,  Ditmar,  Dupuy,  Flynn,  Har- 
rigan,  Henry,  Honce,  Kearns,  Hugh  Kelly,  T.  M.  Kelly,  Lan- 
ning,  Lawless,  Olvaney,  Packer,  Parker,  Peal,  Sheppard,  Smith, 
Stout,  Strahan,  Swartwout,  Tahen,  Thompson,  Tine,  Utter, 
Warne,  Wright  and  Zeller. 

Of  these,  besides  Parker,  Utter  alone  was  a  Republican. 

The  nay  votes  were  cast  by  Barrett,  Baxter,  Berry,  Burton, 
-Cramer,  Diver,  Glaspell,  Holmes,  Holt,  Hutchinson,  Kyte, 
Lane,  Matlack,  Murphy,  O'Brien,  Roebling,  Ross,  Salinger, 
Stafford,  Stanger,  Studer  and  Wilson. 

Of  these,  Timothy  Barrett  of  Essex,  Thomas  J.  O'Brien  of 
Morris,  William  Diver  of  Salem,  George  H.  Cramer  of  Som- 
erset, Thomas  F.  Lane  of  Union,  and  L.  M.  Wilson  of  Warren, 
were  Democrats. 

As  to  the  rest,  Armitage,  Baake,  Beekman,  Gledhill  and 
Woolsey  were  absent. 

The  appearance  of  the  acts  in  the  Senate  had  been  anticipated 
by  a  contest  for  the  chair  to  which  Atlantic  was  entitled. 
^'Fitzgerald's   Legislative   Manual"  confers   upon   that   little 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TftENTON. 


447 


/ 


oounty  the  apparent  distinction  of  two  Senators — Albert  D. 
Hoffman,  Republican,  and  William  Riddle,  Democrat.  The 
two  names  appear  because  when  Hoffman  presented  his  creden- 
tials, young  Senator  Barrett,  of  Essex,  had  filed  a  protest  against 
his  seating,  and  Riddle,  whom  Thompson  had  persuaded  the 
Democrats  of  the  county  to  put  in  nomination,  claimed  to  be 
entitled  to  the  place, 
and  the  contest  was 

still    an    open    one  ) 

when  Mr.  Fitzger- 
ald's very  valuable 
compilation  was 
ready  for  press. 
There  never  had 
been  an  honest 
doubt  about  Hoff- 
man's election,  and 
the  contest  had  been 
inaugurated  only 
for  the  purpose  of 
driving  him  to  the 
aid  of  the  race-track 
legislation.  The 
seated  Senator  hesi- 
tated between  his 
ambitions  and  his 
duty  till  the  day 
before  the  bills 
reached  the  Senate 
from  the  Assem- 
bly. Then  he  com- 
promised with  his  conscience,  and  agreed  to  cast  his  vote  for 
the  bills.  Stokes,  whose  brilliant  oratory  in  the  Assembly  had 
won  him  promotion  to  the  Senate,  and  Colonel  William  H. 
Skirm,  the  military  gentleman  who  spoke  for  Mercer,  and 
Rogers,  of  Camden,  all  renewed  in  the  Upper  Chamber  the 
demands  Lane  had  made  in  the  House  for  a  public  hearing,  but 


R,  V.  Lindaljury. 


448  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

all  in  vain ;  and  the  bills  were  hastened  through  in  speedy  suc- 
cession the  day  they  were  reported.  The  affirmative  votes, 
besides  that  of  Hoffman,  were  cast  by  Adrain,  Butcher,  Cornish, 
Daly,  Drake,  Hinchliffe,  Martin,  McMickle,  Miller,  Perkins 
and  Terhune. 

Barker,  Barrett,  Keys,  Marsh  and  Winton,  Democrats,  voted 
with  Rogers,  Skirm,  Smith  and  Stokes,  Republicans,  in  the 
negative. 

The  bills  had  not  been  placed  in  Governor  Werts's  hands 
before  the  State  was  aflame  with  excitement.  The  people  had 
languidly  contemplated  the  passage  of  the  acts.  But  the  impu- 
dent refusal  of  the  two  Houses  to  permit  them  to  make  formal 
protest  to  their  passage  set  them  wild  with  indignation.  The 
Elizabeth  organization  that  had  sprung  so  quickly  to  the  defeat 
of  the  Parker  bill,  at  Governor  Abbett's  instance,  in  1891,  was 
first  afield.  It  was  under  the  leadership  of  the  venerable  Rev. 
Dr.  Kempshall  and  R.  V.  Lindabury,  the  distinguished  Demo- 
cratic lawyer  of  the  city.  The  suggestion  went  forth  that  the 
entire  ministry  of  the  Sta^e  should  make  the  double  outrage 
upon  public  rights  the  text  for  the  sermons  of  the  succeeding 
Sunday,  and  every  church  appointed  a  delegation  to  be  in  Tren- 
ton the  following  week. 

Governor  Werts  needed  no  urging  in  dealing  with  such  meas- 
ures passed  under  such  auspices  and  by  such  methods,  and  the 
following  day  John  S.  McMaster,  his  smiling  Private  Secre- 
tary, appeared  in  the  House  with  his  vetoes. 

The  gathering  of  the  army  of  people  was  watched  with  pal- 
pitating and  feverish  anxiety  by  both  sides  during  the  time  the 
bills  had  to  lay  over  under  thp  rules  for  reconsideration.  The 
burning  question  was  whether  the  assembling  multitude  could 
perfect  their  plans  and  make  their  descent  upon  Trenton  before 
the  Governor's  vetoes  could  be  called  up  for  action.  The  race  men 
feared  the  effect  of  the  demonstration  upon  the  solidity  of  their 
vote;  the  anti-race  men  hastened  to  make  it.  Great  bodies 
move  slowly,  and  Hutchinson  tried  to  delay  action  till  the  up- 
rising throng  could  mass.  But  Fiynn,  playing  his  game  with  a 
keenness  and  coolness  that  showed  him  to  be  a  dauntless  and 
resourceful  presiding  officer — even  if  hi-3  talents  were  engaged 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF   TRENTON.  449 

in  a  bad  cause — spurred  his  jockey  colleagues  over  the  home- 
stretch and  the  "  racers"  passed  under  the  string,  while  the  gather- 
ing army  of  protestants  looked  helplessly  on  from  their  several 
places  of  rendezvous.  The  vote  by  which  the  bills  were  re- 
enacted  in  the  Hou^e  showed  few  changes.  Baake,  the  Repub- 
lican Assemblyman  from  Atlantic,  won  condemnation  by  going 
over  to  the  support  of  the  racers ;  Utter  and  Parker,  who  had 
voted  for  the  bills  at  the  start,  were  his  only  Republican  consorts 
on  the  check- list.  Armitage,  Barrett,  Beekman,  Cramer,  Lane, 
O'Brien  and  Wilson  were  the  Democrats  who  voted  to  sustain 
the  Governor.  When  the  vetoes  came  up  in  the  Senate,  Presi- 
dent Adrain  took  the  whip  from  Flynn's  hand  and  forced  imme- 
diate action.  Senator  Stokes  made  a  speech  in  support  of  them 
— that  is,  of  the  vetoes — and  Terhuae  explained  that  as  Mon- 
mouth county  had  a  national  fame  as  the  rearing-ground  for 
thoroughbreds,  he  felt  that  he  was  merely  voicing  the  sentiment 
of  his  constituents  in  giving  his  vote  to  the  bills  for  the  second 
time.  Except  as  to  Perkins  and  Smith,  who  were  absent,  tfce 
vote  by  which  the  Senate  overrode  the  vetoes  was  the  same  as 
that  by  which  it  had  originally  passed  the  act. 

Foiled  and  defeated  in  the  demonstration  by  which  they 
hoped  to  overwhelm  the  racers,  the  people  now  set  up  a  demand 
for  the  immediate  repeal  of  the  acts,  and  Lane  introduced 
repealers  a  day  or  two  following.  With  the  effrontery  which 
had  characterized  Speaker  Flynn's  course  through  all  the  agita- 
tions, he  referred  them  to  the  committee  of  which  his  race-track 
employer,  Thompson,  was  chairman.  It  was  assumed  at  once 
that  this  eminent  Camden  statesman  would  never  permit  them 
to  see  daylight  again.  Meanwhile  the  multitude  which  was 
preparing  to  swoop  down  on  the  Capitol  with  a  mad  energy 
never  before  witnessed  in  the  State,  made  announcement  that  on 
Washington's  birthday  they  would  take  possfssion  of  the  Assem- 
bly Chamber  and  make  their  indignant  voices  heard.  Timothy 
Barrett,  the  independent  Orange  representative,  sent  a  resolution 
to  the  Clerk's  desk  extending  to  them  the  freedom  of  the  Cham- 
ber. Speaker  Flynn  sneeringly  declared,  as  he  heard  the  reso- 
tion  read,  that  the  women  and  dominies  would  never  be  allowed 

29 


450  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

to  use  that  Chamber  for  their  indignation  meetings.  But  the 
Legislature  deemed  it  prudent  to  dodge  the  gathering  army,  and 
held  no  session  on  the  day  designated  for  the  meeting.  In  the 
morning  the  throng  came  rushing  into  Trenton  from  every 
point  of  the  compass — old  men  and  young,  big  men  and  little, 
women  and  children,  mothers  and  sisters,  and  sweethearts  and 
wives,  by  train,  by  carriage,  in  stages  and  afoot — till  there  were 
close  on  to  five  thousand  excited  and  angry  strangers  in  the 
town.  They  marched  in  orderly  procession  into  the  State 
House,  and  held  a  preliminary  meeting  to  arrange  the  pro- 
gramme for  the  day.  They  elected  the  white-haired  Dr. 
Kempshall,  of  Elizabeth,  President ;  tJie  equally -venerable 
Dean  McNulty  of  Paterson,  R.  V.  Lindabury  of  Elizabeth, 
and  Judge  William  M.  Lanning  of  Trenton,  Vice  Presidents, 
and  Editor  Charles  C.  McBride  of  Elizabeth,  Treasurer  and 
Secretary.  They  organized  a  perpetual  league,  and  assigned  a 
delegate  to  see  that  auxiliary  leagues  were  organized  in  each 
county.  General  E.  Burd  Grubb  was  to  look  after  Burlington, 
Judge  Van  Valen  after  Bergen,  Senator  Stokes  after  Cumber- 
land, L.  H.  Kellum  after  Camden,  James  B.  Dusenbury  after 
Essex,  Rev.  Judson  Pierson  after  Gloucester,  William  A.  Cotter 
after  Hunterdon,  William  M.  Lanning  after  Mercer,  John  T. 
Voorhees  after  Middlesex,  James  S.  Yard  after  Monmouth, 
Willard  W.  Cutler  after  Morris,  I.  W.  Carmichael  after  Ocean, 
Rev.  Dean  McNulty  after  Passaic,  John  V.  Craven  after  Salem, 
J.  V.  Voorhees  after  Somerset,  Judge  Hiram  C.  Clark  after 
Sussex,  R.  V.  Lindabury  after  Union,  and  Rev.  J.  D.  Bruen 
after  Warren.  Over  these  was  appointed  a  State  Executive  Com- 
mittee of  fifty  to  act  as  the  central  authority. 

The  preliminaries  having  been  arranged,  the  throng  filed 
down  the  staircase  to  the  door  of  the  Assembly  Chamber,  and 
demanded  admittance.  The  door  was  locked  ;  it  was  the  general 
belief  that  Speaker  Flynn  had  the  key  in  his  pocket.  Some  one 
suggested  that  Bernard  J.  Ford  was  the  Superintendent  of  the 
State  House,  and  a  committee  was  appointed  to  wait  upon  him. 
He  placed  the  key  in  their  hands  and  the  multitude  rushed 
madly  into  the  Chamber.     The  wildest  cheers  rent  the  air  as 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         451 

the  Rev.  Dr.  Kempshall  mounted  the  dais — Speaker  FJynn's  dais 
— stationed  himself  behind  the  desk — Speaker  Flynn's  desk — 
and  raised  the  gavel — Speaker  Flynn's  gavel — as  a  a  signal 
for  order.  Well,  to  say  that  when  the  white-haired  parson 
found  himself  in  possession  of  the  chair  and  desk  and  gavel  of 
this  arch  enemy  of  the  people,  as  he  termed  the  Speaker,  he  just 
clapped  his  wings  and  crowed,  may  not  be  exactly  accurate,  but 
it  is  wonderfully  descriptive  of  the  impression  imbibed  by  the 
listening  thousands. 

"  By  the  grace  of  God,"  were  his  first  words,  "  I  am  in  the 
chair  of  the  man  who  said  we  should  never  be  here,"  and  then 
he  launched  out  into  a  fiery  philippic  that  kept  the  crowd 
enthused  from  the  first  word  to  the  last.  But  it  was  discovered 
that  even  the  great  big  Assembly  Chamber  was  all  too  small  for 
the  assembled  multitude  ;  and,  having  asserted  the  people's  right 
to  assemble  in  mass  meeting  in  the  people's  own  Assembly 
Chamber  and  defied  the  power  of  an  accidental  officer  to  keep 
them  out,  they  repaired  to  Taylor  Opera  House,  which  had  been 
engaged  for  use  in  the  event  of  their  failure  to  procure  recogni- 
tion of  their  rights  in  the  State  House.  There,  earnest  speeches 
were  made  by  Rev.  Dr.  Dixon  of  Trenton,  Rev.  Mr.  Parsons 
and  Rev.  Father  McNulty  of  Paterson,  by  President  Scott  of 
Rutgers,  Rev.  Dr.  Storrs  of  Orange,  Professor  T.  M.  Langdon 
of  Bordentown,  and  Vice  Chancellor  Bird  of  Hunterdon.  Rev. 
Dr.  Dixon  eulogized  Barrett  and  Barker  and  Keys,  and  others 
who  had  voted  against  the  bill,  and  announcement  was  made 
that  every  one  of  those  who  had  supported  the  bill  had  been 
requested  to  present  himself  at  the  meeting  and  explain  the 
reason  for  his  action.  There  was  but  one  response,  and  that  in 
the  repentant  voice  of  Assemblyman  Lanning,  of  Trenton. 

Mr.  Lanning  was  a  man  of  means,  who  had  been  held  in  high 
repute  among  his  neighbors,  and  he  felt  the  ostracism  to  which 
he  had  been  subjected  by  his  advocacy  of  the  bill.  When  his 
little  children  came  home  from  school  in  tears  one  afternoon  and 
told  him  that  crowds  of  their  school-mates  had  followed  at  their 
heels  jeering  them  as  the  sons  and  daughters  of  one  who  favored 
gamblers,  his  mind  was  made  up,  and  he  had  straightway  sought 


452  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

his  pastor,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Studdiford,  and  made  confession  of  his 
error  and  expression  of  his  desire  to  correct  it.  This  little  story 
was  not  told  in  all  of  its  details  to  the  crowd,  but  the  bare  an- 
nouncement that  the  Trenton  Assemblyman  had  solemnly 
recanted  threw  the  listeners  into  a  frenzy  of  cheers. 

Of  course  resolutions  were  adopted  denouncing  the  passage  of 
the  racers  and  demanding  the  enactment  of  the  repealers ;  and 
a  committee  of  fifty  wa?  appointed  to  wait  upon  the  Legislature 
and  present  the  remonstrance. 

Under  the  prod  of  this  overwhelming  demonstration  the  com- 
mittee was  forced  to  unbend,  and  it  went  through  the  form  of 
according  the  public  hearing.  The  League  had  commissioned 
ex-Speaker  Bergen  of  Somerset,  ex-Senator  George  H.  Large  of 
Hunterdon  and  ex- Assemblyman  William  H.  Corbin  of  Union 
to  speak  in  its  behalf.  A  wintry  afternoon  sun  streamed  over 
the  upper  galleries  down  into  the  open  semicircle  that  sweeps 
around  the  Speaker's  dais.  The  members'  desks  under  the 
shadow  of  the  galleries  were  occupied  by  the  gathered  Leaguers. 
The  gallery  was  black  with  people.  The  League  speakers  made 
cogent  arguments  for  their  cause.  When  they  had  finished  a 
picturesque  old  man  came  with  halting  gait  from  the  shadows  till 
the  streaming  sun  lighted  up  his  pale,  clean-shaven  face,  and  hi& 
dark-blue  clerical  coat  buttoned  close  up  to  his  chin.  Every 
man  in  the  audience  knew  the  good  Dean  McNulty,  of  one 
of  the  Paterson  Catholic  parishes,  and  cheers  greeted  him  a& 
he  advanced.  He  looked  around  hesitatingly,  and,  drawing 
his  watch  from  his  pocket  and  holding  it  in  his  hand,  he  began 
to  talk  for  a  limit  of  time  he  had  evidently  set  upon  himself. 
It  was  not  a  great  burst  of  oratory — his  address ;  but  it  was  so 
simple  and  yet  so  earnest  an  appeal  to  the  better  sentiment  of 
the  committee-men  as  to  make  it  easily  the  most  impressive  of 
the  efforts  made  there  that  afternoon. 

The  committee  heard  them  all,  and  then  it  was  announced 
that  the  race-track  men  desired  to  be  heard,  the  defiant  crew 
craving  for  the  very  privilege  that,  with  such  hardened  front, 
they  had  attempted  to  deny  to  the  people.  They  had  retained 
Colonel  E.  L.  Price,  the  Democratic  leader  in  Newark,  and 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         453 

Samuel  Kali^ch,  an  eloquent  and  successful  lawyer  of  the  same 
-city,  to  argue  against  the  repealers.  They  were  not  ready  to  go 
on  then,  and  they  asked  further  time.  It  was  only  the  race- 
track people's  own  device  to  delay  and  obstruct  the  passage  of 
the  repealers,  and  it  is  needless  to  say  that  the  time  they  asked 
was  freely  given  them.  They  made  their  arguments,  but  it  was 
not  because  of  them  that  the  repealers  never  struggled  out  of 
the  committee.  The  committee  had  been  constituted  to  inter- 
pose just  such  a  bar  as  a  failure  to  report  them,  against  their 
enactment. 

The  session  did  not  come  to  a  close,  however,  till  it  had  wit- 
nessed a  notable  battle  between  the  arrogant  jockeys  themselves. 
The  Guttenberg  and  Gloucester  people  had  broken  friendship 
while  the  bills  were  on  their  way  through  the  two  Chambers.  It 
was  said  that  the  Guttenberg  magnates  had  not  contributed  as 
liberally  as  they  should  have  contributed  to  the  expenses  attend- 
ing the  enactment  of  the  laws.  The  competition  of  near-by 
race-courses  in  the  spring,  summer  and  fall  left  only  the  winter 
for  Guttenberg's  busy  season.  Though  his  course  was  patron- 
ized by  a  crowd  that  could  not  reach  the  competing  courses, 
Thompson  was  willing  to  lose  his  winter  business  to  retaliate 
upon  the  Guttenberg  parsimony,  and  he  had  an  act  forbidding 
winter  racing  prepared. 

Assemblyman  Joseph  M.  Byrne,  of  Essex,  introduced  it. 
Livid  with  rage.  Assemblyman  "  Teddy  "  Carroll,  one  of  Dennis 
McLaughlin's  political  and  race- track  sucklings,  fought  it  in  the 
House,  and  Senator  Daly,  of  Hudson,  made  some  really  bright 
speeches  in  opposition  to  it  in  the  Senate,  but  it  had  been  booked 
to  pass,  and  through  both  branches  it  went  without  ajar. 

The  work  of  the  jockey  Legislature  was  done  now,  and  it 
folded  its  tent  and  stole  away  from  its  trysting-place. 


CHAPTER    XXXVII. 

Which  is  the  Fitting  End  of  the  Story,  and  the  Last  Chapter 
IN  this  History. 


M' 


mi 

HE  details  of  these  later  sessions  of  the  Legislature  have 
been  gone  into  with  somewhat  of  fullness,  not  more 
p"  because  of  their  historical  interest  than  because  they 
mark  the  end  of  the  epoch  in  the  history  of  New  Jer- 
sey which  these  pages  cover.  They  were  the  culminating^ 
exploits  in  the  rule  of  the  mobs  into  whose  hands  the  control  of 
the  State  and  of  its  municipalities  had  fallen.  The  State  was 
indignant  beyond  measure  at  the  outrage  the  last  of  her  Legis- 
latures had  added  to  the  affronts  and  oppressions  of  its  two  or 
three  predecessors.  The  race- track  men  applied  to  the  towns 
and  counties  for  permission  to  open  their  courses,  and  to  two  or 
three  of  them  it  was  freely  accorded.  The  Passaic  Freeholders 
threw  the  clcak  of  the  new  law  over  the  track  at  Clifton. 
The  village  of  Eatontown  commissioned  old  Monmouth.  The 
town  of  Guttenberg,  made  up  mainly  of  huts  and  mud  roads  and 
snarling  dogs,  stood  as  a  blazing  sword  against  official  interfer- 
ence, at  the  Guttenberg  gates.  Thompson,  from  the  Gloucester 
paddocks,  fluttered  the  license  of  the  Gloucester  City  Council  in 
the  faces  of  the  people.  Linden  township  officials  were  on  the 
point  of  granting  a  license  to  the  Linden  track  when  they  were 
overtaken  by  a  scandal  that  prompted  Supreme  Court  Judge 
Van  Syckel  to  commend  them  to  the  consideration  of  the  Union 
county  grand  juries. 

This  spectacle  of  a  lot  of  obscure  little  towns,  not  sufficiently 
conspicuous  to  make  a  speck  on  the  map  of  the  State,  thus  em- 
ploying the  accidental  authority  with  which  they  found  them- 
selves invested  to  foil  and  defeat  the  better  sentiment  of  the 
whole  Common w(alth,  in  the  interest  of  jockeys  and  gamblers, 
(454) 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         455 

and  the  invasion  of  the  State  at  both  ends  by  a  coarse,  cursing 
rabble,  was  a  new  aggravation.  It  seemed  to  be  a  fitting  supple- 
ment of  the  ballot-box  rascalities,  the  delivery  of  cities  and 
towns  over  to  official  looters,  the  oppressive  scrutiny  of  the  all- 
pervasive  autocracy,  and  it  was  plainly  the  outcome  of  a  general 
demoralization  of  public  sentiment.  It  was  a  condition  of 
things  that  the  people  could  not  longer  patiently  endure,  and  as 
the  fall  of  1893  approached  it  became  apparent  that  the  whole 
State  was  ready  with  a  fierce  determination  to  do  the  house- 
cleaning  which  it  had  been  restrained  from  doing  in  1892  by  the 
fear  of  injuring  the  candidacy  of  Cleveland  for  the  Presidency. 

There  were  no  diverting  issues  this  time  for  the  recreant 
Democratic  leaders  to  hide  behind.  There  was  nothing  on  hand 
but  the  choice  of  a  new  Assembly  and  a  half  a  dozen  new 
Senators,  and  the  questions  at  issue  concerned  only  home  affairs. 
They  had  to  come  to  the  open  and  meet,  without  adventitious 
shield,  the  charge  that  they  had  abused  their  trusts,  sold  the 
rights  of  the  people,  outraged  their  consciences,  conspired 
against  their  welfare,  stained  the  escutcheon  of  the  State  with 
shame,  and  treated  public  office  as  a  private  emolument.  The 
Democratic  managers  themselves  could  see  that  the  arm  that  had 
been  poised  aloft  in  the  campaign  of  the  preceding  fall  was  to 
fall  this  time  with  crushing  weight,  and  they  trembled. 

They  still  hoped,  however,  that  the  gerrymander  of  1892, 
devised  with  the  idea  of  preventing  the  expression  of  an  accus- 
ing popular  sentiment  in  the  balls  of  the  Legislature,  would  pro- 
tect them ;  and  the  Republicans  themselves  feared  that  with  its 
elaborate  scheme  of  disfranchisement  it  would  prove  a  handicap 
that  they  would  find  it  impossible  to  overcome.  They  went  to 
the  Supreme  Court  for  relief.  The  argument  was  an  exhaustive 
one  on  both  sides.  The  court  had  not  reached  its  decision  when 
election  day  came  around. 

Then  it  was  seen  that  the  people  had  swept  away  even  its 
great  barriers  with  the  force  of  a  whirlwind.  The  bill  had  been 
framed  so  as  to  assure  forty- four  of  the  sixty  Assembly  districts 
to  the  Democrats.  The  count  of  the  ballots  gave  over  forty  of 
the  seats  to  the  Republicans.     The  Republican  majority  in  the 


456  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

State  approached  30,000.  Never  in  its  history  had  the  State  so 
emphatically  repudiated  her  rulers  and  sent  new  men  forward  to 
displace  them  and  undo  their  wrongs  and  inaugurate  a  cleaner 
government  on  a  higher  plane. 

The  race-track  Assemblymen  who  had  dared  to  seek  re-election 
were  repudiated  with  special  emphasis.  Utter,  of  Morris,  had 
been  frowned  out  of  town  by  his  indignant  neighbors.  Baake's 
renomination  sacrificed  Republican  Atlantic  to  the  Democrats. 
Even  Democratic  and  race-track  Monmouth  refused  to  send 
Terhune  back  to  the  Senate,  and  elected  Bradley,  of  Asbury 
Park,  in  his  place. 

And,  after  the  victory  had  been  won  in  spite  of  the  gerry- 
mander and  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  every  public  place  in  the 
State  was  manned  with  a  retainer  of  the  thoroughly-organized 
ring,  the  Supreme  Court  surprised  everybody  by  a  ruling  that  the 
system  of  electing  Assemblymen  within  district  lines  was  not 
lawful,  and  that  to  be  in  consonance  with  the  requirements  of 
the  State  Constitution  the  Assembly  delegations  must  be  elected 
in  each  county  on  a  general  county  ticket. 

The  Republican  leaders  and  legislators  had  ample  notice,  be- 
fore they  reached  Trenton  on  the  eve  of  the  organization  of  the 
Legislature  which  they  had  so  overwhelmingly  captured,  that 
they  were  not  to  be  allowed  to  take  unobstructed  possession  of 
the  State  Senate.  Rumors  had  been  rife  for  weeks  that  some 
one  of  busy  brain  was  conjuring  up  devices  to  keep  the  control 
of  that  branch  of  the  Legislature  out  of  Republican  hands,  in 
the  hope  of  preventing  legislative  interference  with  the  opera- 
tions of  the  Ringi  and  the  tenure  of  the  Ring  office-holders. 
A  challenge  to  the  whole  array  of  Assemblymen  was  threatened, 
on  the  ground  that  they  had  been  elected  by  districts,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  gerrymander  law,  which  the  Supreme  Court 
had  just  set  aside,  and  not  in  the  several  counties  by  the  voters 
at  large,  which  the  court  had  at  the  same  time  declared  to  be 
the  only  constitutional  method  for  their  election.  State  Comp- 
troller Heppenheimer  made  public  announcement  through  the 
prints  tbat  he  would,  for  that  reason,  refuse  to  surrender  his 
office  to  a  successor  chosen  by  the  Assembly  in  joint  meeting 


MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON.  457 


with  the  Senate.  He  afterwards  withdrew  the  threat,  and  when 
it  was  discovered  that  the  Republicans  had  rather  robbed  the 
point  of  its  tenability  by  abstaining  from  entering  up  judgment 
in  their  gerrymander  proceedings,  that  plan  of  battle  was  aban- 
doned. Right  on  the  heels  of  it  came  a  suggestion  that  the 
<jovernor  call  the  Senate  together  in  special  session,  to  give  the 
Democratic  majority  an  opportunity  to  unseat  Senator  Hoffman, 
Republican,  of  Atlantic,  and  so  maintain  Democratic  supremacy, 
by  a  majority  of  one,  in  the  new  Senate.  That  idea  was  credited 
to  Thompson,  of  Gloucester,  and  met  with  marked  popular 
disfavor.  The  most  reckless  of  the  plotters  realized  that  a  con- 
vening of  the  Seaate  in  irregular  session,  to  take  from  him  the 
seat  which  had  been  confirmed  to  him  by  an  opposition  ma- 
jority, would  lay  everybody  who  had  a  hand  in  it  open  to  serious 
criticism,  and  that  plan,  too,  fell  to  the  ground,  while  a  wonder- 
ing State  indulged  in  wild  speculations  as  to  the  next  move  that 
was  to  be  set  on  foot. 

It  seemed  for  two  or  three  weeks  as  though  the  situation 
offered  insuperable  obstacles  to  the  destruction  of  the  Republican 
majority  in  the  Senate,  and  the  people  began  to  believe  that 
peaceable  possession  would  be  given  to  the  new  Senators ;  but 
these  hopes  were  dashed  when  one  of  the  newspapers  announced 
the  outlines  of  a  new  plan.  This  was  to  set  up  the  point  that 
the  Senate  was  a  continuous  body ;  that  it  consisted,  at  the  hour 
for  the  organizition,  of  the  nine  Democratic  and  four  Republi- 
can Senators  whose  terms  had  not  expired  and  who  were  to  hold 
over  from  the  old  Senate  into  the  new  ;  that  these  were  the  con- 
stitutional judges  of  the  election  and  return  of  the  new  mem- 
bers, and  that  they  must  pass  upon  qualifications  and  credentials 
before  the  newly-elected  men  could  become  full-fledged  and 
active  Senators.  Before  the  organization  day  arrived,  it  was 
understood  that  George  W.  Ketcham,  the  new  Senator  from 
Essex;  Daniel  J.  Packer,  the  new  Senator  from  Gloucester; 
Lewis  A.  Thompson,  the  new  Senator  from  Somerset ;  Foster 
M.  Voorhees,  the  new  Senator  from  Union,  all  Republicans, 
and  Christopher  F.  Staates,  of  Warren,  the  only  Democrat 
who  had  been  elected  to  the  Senate  in  the  eight  counties  in 


458  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

which  new  incumbents  had  been  chosen,  were  to  be  promptly 
admitted  to  their  seats;  but  the  intimation  was  that  the 
filing  of  protests  against  their  seating,  which  no  one  was  al- 
lowed to  see,  would  serve  as  pretexts  for  keeping  James  A. 
Bradley,  the  new  Monmouth  Senator;  M.  A.  R,ogers,  re- 
elected to  represent  Camden,  and  John  C.  Ward,  the  new 
Salem  Senator,  indefinitely  out  of  the  places  to  which  the  people 
had  sent  them.  The  success  of  that  scheme  would  have  made 
a  Senate  consisting  of  ten  Democrats  and  eight  Republicans,  and 
the  legislative  reforms  for  which  the  people  of  the  State  had 
voted  would,  as  the  result  of  a  dead-lock  between  the  two  Houses,, 
be  defeated. 

These  movements  were  directed  with  special  force  against 
Senator  Bradley.  He  had  made  a  campaign  in  Monmouth  that 
was  quite  as  picturesque  as  it  was  successful ;  and  the  eyes  of 
the  State  had  been  attracted  to  him  by  the  novelty  of  the  methods 
he  employed.  His  distribution  of  scrubbing-brushes  with  cam- 
paign legends  of  one  kind  or  another  upon  them,  among  the 
housewives  of  the  county,  and  of  shining  silver  dimes  among 
the  younger  fry  as  a  temptation  to  commit  his  campaign  songs 
to  memory  and  to  learn  the  measure  to  which  they  were  sung,, 
was  made  the  object  of  criticism  by  the  Democratic  leaders. 
They  claimed  that  under  the  English  law  the  employment  of 
such  methods  amounted  to  bribery,  and  they  prepared  to  make 
a  contest  for  his  seat  in  the  Senate  Chamber.  Senator  Henry  S. 
Terhuoe,  who  had  been  the  Democratic  candidate  against  him^ 
disappointed  their  expectations  by  refusing  to  file  a  protest 
against  his  admission.  Mr.  Terhune  based  his  refusal  on  the  broad 
ground  that  Mr.  Bradley  had  been  the  choice  of  thi  people,  and 
that  he  could  not  participate  in  any  movement  to  deprive  them 
of  their  rights.  But  the  disappointed  Democrats  ascribed  his 
refusal  to  personal  motives.  Mr.  Terhune  was  a  close  relative — 
and  the  heir-at-law — of  ex-Senator  Henry  S.  Little,  and  Mr. 
Little  was  the  bitter  personal  and  political  enemy  of  United 
States  Senator  .John  R.  McPherson.  Mr.  Terhune  argued, 
according  to  the  theory  of  the  disappointed  Democrats,  that 
a   Democratic   majority   in   the   Legislature  would    favor   the 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         45& 

re-election  of  SeDator  McPherson ;  and,  to  please  Mr.  Little, 
concluded  that  he  would  not  help  to  make  a  majority  that 
might  be  =o  perverse,  bv  insisting  upon  his  seat  in  the  Senale, 
even  though  he  believed,  as  they  suspected  he  did,  that  he 
might  make  a  successful  contest  for  it.  Finding  it  impossible 
for  whatever  reason  to  tempt  ex-Serator  Terhune  to  pose  as  the 
aspirant  for  the  seat,  Mr.  Bradlev's  opponents  resorted  to  the 
expedient  of  preparing  a  protest  against  his  admission.  Such  a 
protest  is  kno"^n  to  have  been  circulated  among  the  Monmouth 
people  for  signatures.  To  what  number  signatures  were  secured, 
only  those  who  handled  the  paper  can  say.  It  was  said  that  it 
was  delivered  to  Senator  Daly,  of  Hudson,  for  use  as  a  foil 
against  Bradley's  election  credentials,  when  he  should  offer  them 
for  acceptance  to  the  hold-over  Senators ;  but  though  Mr.  Brad- 
ley made  strenuous  efforts  to  get  a  glimpse  of  it,  Serator  Daly 
steadily  kept  it  out  of  view  till  the  very  end  of  the  controversy 
that  ensued. 

The  slimness  of  the  majority  by  which  he  had  been  elected  to 
a  seat  in  the  Chamber  was  the  single  basis  of  the  Democratic 
designs  upon  the  seat  to  which  Ward,  of  Salem,  had  been 
chosen  :  and  in  the  case  of  Rogers,  who  had  been  re-elected  to 
represent  Camden  in  the  body,  the  reasons  for  contest  were  even 
less  tangible.  Thompson,  the  manager  of  the  race-tracks  at 
Gloucester  City,  had  found  it  impossible,  when  the  race-track 
bills  were  pending  before  the  Senate  of  1893,  to  force  or  per- 
suade Rogers  into  voting  for  them,  and  he  had  made  a  strong 
attempt  to  prevent  his  return  to  the  Senate  of  IS 94.  It  w£is 
understood  that  General  Sewell  was  not  unfavorable  to  the 
Senator's  re-election.  Thompson  went  to  the  Camden  chieftain 
and  endeavored  to  persuade  him  to  fight  Rogers  out  of  the  Re- 
publican County  Convention.  If  the  General  had  ever  wavered 
in  his  support  of  Rogers,  he  probably  found  in  Mr.  Thompson's 
opposition  the  most  cogent  of  reasons  for  warm  advocacy  of 
Rogers'  claims,  and  Rogers  had  easily  achieved  a  renomination. 
The  county  had  so  pronounced  a  Republican  majority  that  the 
nomination  was  equivalent  to  an  election,  but  Thompson  turned 
his  race-track  followers  and  his  heelers  of  all  kinds  loose  upon 


460 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


the  community ;  made,  in  a  print  which  he  controlled,  the 
most  obscene  of  charges  against  Rogers'  personal  conduct, 
and  poured  out  money  like  water  in  the  hope  of  defeating 
him.  Ex- Speaker  Flynn,  who  was  Mr.  Thompson's  lieu- 
tenant in  the  conduct  of  the  campaign,  confidently  predicted 
that  the  result  would  be  Rogers'  defeat  in  spite  of  the  nomi- 
nal majority  at  his  back;  and  the  revelations  of  fraud  in  the 
Assembly  district  which  Thompson  represented  at  the  time  in 
the   Assembly,  made  by  an   Investigating   Committee  of  the 

Assembly,  of  which  As- 
semblyman Storrs,  of  Es- 
sex, was  Chairman,  was 
excused  by  Thompson's 
friends  on  the  plea  that 
they  had  been  perpe- 
trated not  for  the  purpose 
of  re-electing  Thompson, 
but  for  the  other  pur- 
pose of  defeating  Rogers. 
Notwithstanding  the  ex- 
penditure of  money  and 
the  Thompson  heelers  and 
the  vile  newspaper  at- 
tacks and  Mr.  Flynn's 
confident  predictions, 
Rogers  survived  the  con- 
flict to  appear  in  Trenton 
as  one  of  the  three  Re- 
publican Senators-elect  who  were  not  to  be  permitted  to  take 
their  seats.  But  their  Democratic  competitors  at  the  polls  failed 
to  appear  in  the  Senate  Chamber  as  contestants  for  the  seat  of 
either,  and,  as  in  the  case  of  Senator  Bradley,  the  only  objection 
that  could  be  offered  to  their  seating  was  the  claim  that  "  some 
one"  had  filed  protests  against  their  admission. 

It  was  plain  to  every  eye  that  the  stakes  for  which  the  men 
dn  whose  interest  this  obstructive  process  had  been  devised,  were 
enormous.     The  race- course  men  contemplated  spiking  the  judi- 


Maurice  A.  Rogers. 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


461 


cial  decision  against  the  Race- track  law  with  an  appeal  to  the 
Court  of  Errors,  and  re-opening  the  tracks.  Hundreds  of  Stale 
officials,  whose  positions  would  be  taken  from  them  by  a  Re- 
publican Lfgislature,  and  the  thousands  of  officials  in  control  of 
cities,  towns  and  villages  who  were  soon  to  be  ousted  from  their 
places,  would  be  made  secure  against  interference.  Men 
who  had  been  in  the  business  of  owning  Legislatures  for 
the  personal  profit  their  control  of  legislation  brought  to  them 
could  still  exact  tribute 
for  preserving  the  status 
quo  for  their  shady  clients. 
But  in  spite  of  the  tempta- 
tions the  situation  offered 
to  the  Democrats  in  con- 
trol, the  Republican  Sen- 
ators were  scarcely  able  to 
convince  themselves,  when 
they  went  to  Trenton,  that 
anything  so  audacious  as 
had  been  suggested  would 
be  attempted.  Soon  after 
their  arrival  they  held  a 
series  of  conferences  with 
General  Sewell,  Franklin 
Murphy,  the  Chairman  of 
the  Republican  State  Com- 
mittee ;  ex-Congressman 
John    Kean,   Corporation 

Counsel  Joseph  Coult,  of  Newark  ;  ex-Senator  Garret  A.  Hobart, 
the  Vice  Chairman  of  the  Republican  National  Committee; 
ex-Senator  John  W.  Griggs,  ex-  State  Comptroller  E.  J.  Ander- 
son, Colonel  John  J.  Toffey,  Edward  Bettle,  ex- Riparian  Com- 
missioner Richard  B.  Reading,  and  a  number  of  other  con- 
spicuous Republicans.  They  began  to  fear  that  there  might  be 
something  in  the  threats  of  the  hold-overs  when  they  had  learned 
what  these  gentlemen  knew,  and  the  possibilities  they  thought 


John  J.  Tofley. 


462  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

they  might  be  forced  to  face  in  the  morning  were  canvassed  from 
every  point  of  view,  and  their  course  mapped  out. 

The  night  before  organization  never  fails  to  draw  a  large 
concourse  of  interested  and  curious  politicians  to  the  State 
Capital.  This  feverish  Monday  evening  saw  Trenton  in  pos- 
session of  such  a  throng  as  seldom  invaded  her.  Newark  sent 
down  two  or  three  large  Republican  clubs.  Senator  Rogers 
had  come  up  from  Camden  with  an  organized  escort.  Every 
train  from  north  or  south  or  east  or  west  rolled  into  the  depots 
choked  with  passengers,  and  rolled  out  empty.  Some  were 
oflBce-seekers ;  some  were  enthusiagts ;  others  were  drawn  by 
mere  curiosity  and  the  love  of  excitement.  By  the  time  the 
electric  lights  had  been  lighted,  the  streets  upon  which  the 
hotels  faced  swarmed  with  people.  The  possibilities  of  the  next 
day  were  the  one  topic  they  discussed.  They  choked  the  hotel 
stair-cases  and  streamed  through  the  hotel  corridors  in  quest  of 
tid-bits  of  information  and  speculation  to  feed  the  endless  gossip 
of  the  night.  By  nine  o'clock  they  were  swaying  in  a  solid 
mass  from  one  hotel  front  to  the  other.  The  Windsor,  which 
was  the  headquarters  of  most  of  the  Republican  Senators  and  of 
many  of  the  Assemblymen,  and  the  Trenton  House,  where  Gen- 
eral Sewell  held  forth  in  the  famous  Room  100,  were  impassable 
for  half  the  night  because  of  the  crowd.  At  the  Windsor,  the 
Senators  were  haled,  by  the  enthusiastic  multitude,  to  the 
windows  of  an  upper  story  for  speeches.  Senator  Ketcham 
made  a  little  address,  in  which  he  expressed  fears  that  the  worst 
was  to  be  and  hope  that  it  might  be  better.  And  Senator 
Bradley,  though  quite  unable  to  walk  because  of  a  recent  injury 
to  his  foot,  limped  on  his  crutch  to  the  casement,  and  vowed 
that  he'd  take  his  seat  in  the  Senate  on  the  morrow,  and  stay 
there  till,  as  he  expressed  it,  he  was  "chucked  out."  The 
clamor  of  applause  that  greeted  this  somewhat  inelegant 
announcement  set  the  bell  in  the  tower  of  the  church  across  the 
street  in  vibration  General  Sewell  and  his  companions  in  the 
Trenton  House  were  serenaded,  and  speeches  in  similar  vein, 
delivered  from  the  balconies,  provoked  fresh  outbursts  of  deaf- 
ening applause. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  463 

An  unwritten  law  of  the  State  fixed  three  o'clock  of  the  fol- 
lowing afternoon  as  the  hour  for  organization  of  the  Legisla- 
ture. The  feverish  throng  awaited  the  coming  of  the  hour  all 
too  impatiently.  Michael  Nathan,  the  Sergeant-at-Arms  of  the 
last  Senate,  anticipated  their  arrival  at  the  State  House.  In  the 
morning  he  secured  the  keys  of  the  Senate  Chamber  from  State 
House  Superintendent  Bernard  J.  Ford,  made  a  survey  of  the 
room,  and  went  for  his  dinner.  Shortly  before  two  o'clock  he 
returned,  and  took  possession  of  the  Chamber.  The  Democratic 
hold-over  Senators  straggled  along  one  by  one  shortly  afterwards. 
The  crowd  in  the  broad  corridor  was  growing  denser  and  denser 
«ach  minute.  It  was  menacing  in  its  demeanor  and  had  evi- 
dently gathered  with  the  purpose  of  overawing  the  orderly  pro- 
gress of  events  and  forcing  the  issue  for  the  Republican  side. 
Nathan  took  it  upon  himself  to  bar  all  the  doors — the  fretted 
glass  doors  opening  upon  the  broad  aisle  of  the  chamber,  and 
the  doors  leading  to  the  lobby-rooms  and  the  galleries — against 
their  admission.  The  throng  pressed  so  viciously  on  all  sides, 
that  he  became  alarmed  lest  they  should  burst  the  locks,  and  he 
deemed  police  aid  necessary. 

It  was  a  hopeless  task  to  undertake  to  push  his  way  through 
the  solid  mass  of  humanity  that  had  wedged  itself  into  the 
corridor;  and,  stepping  through  a  window  in  the  rear  of  the 
President's  room,  he  ran  across  the  lawn  and  was  lifted  through 
another  window  into  the  Executive  Chamber.  He  made  Gov- 
ernor Werts  acquainted  with  the  situation,  and  the  Governor's 
telephone  for  police  aid  soon  brought  Captain  Cleary  with  a  squad 
of  sixteen  men  to  the  building.  It  was  with  infinite  difl&culty 
that  these  stalwart  fellows  ploughed  a  lane  through  the  crowd,  so 
that  those  entitled  to  admission  to  the  floor  might  make  their 
way  to  the  Chamber  doors. 

Before  three  o'clock,  eight  of  the  nine  Democratic  "  hold-over" 
Senators  had  taken  their  seats  within.  Senator  Martin,  the 
ninth,  was  confined  to  his  home  with  an  illness  that  kept  him 
away  for  all  the  session.  The  eight  were  impatient  to  proceed 
with  their  programme ;  and  the  big  hand  of  the  electric  clock 
over  the  door  had  not  sprung  to  the  three-o'clock  mark  when 


464         MODERN   BATTLES   OF   TRENTON. 


Samuel  C.  Thompson,  the  stocky  Secretary  of  the  last  Democratie 
Senate,  proceeded  to  call  the  roll ;  and  in  doing  it  he  called  the 
names  of  none  but  the  thirteen  hold-overs.  The  eight  Demo- 
cratic Senators  responded,  and  Daly  followed  with  a  motion 
that  Senator  Adrain  be  chosen  temporary  Chairman  of  the 
organization,  and  other  motions  continuing  the  Secretary  and  his 
assistants  in  their  places. 

Adrain  took  the  chair  and  toyed  with  the  gavel  for  several 
minutes.  Shortly  after  three  o'clock  martial  music  was  heard 
in  the  hall.  A  band  heading  the  Senators,  with  General  Sewell 
and  ex- Senator  John  W.  Griggs  in  the  lead,  and  followed  by  a 
crushing  throng,  approached  the  Chamber  door.  It  refused  to 
yield  to  their  pressure,  and  Senator  Ketcham  tapped  angrily  on 
the  glass  for  admittance. 

"  Who  is  knocking?  "  shouted  Nathan  from  within.  "  If  he 
is  a  Senator,  let  him  give  his  name." 

Barker  Gummere,  who  was  in  the  front  of  the  processionists, 
hearing  the  key  turn  in  the  lock,  opened  the  door  on  a  jar  and 
pressed  himself  into  the  opening.  One  of  the  Democratic  door- 
keepers sprang  to  the  knob,  and  in  his  efforts  to  force  the  door 
shut  again  crushed  Gummere.  He  was  forced  back,  and  the 
multitude  in  the  corridor  broke  into  a  yell  of  scorn  and  derision. 
When  the  tumult  had  subsided.  Senator  A^oorhees,  of  Union, 
rapped  again  for  admission. 

"  We  are  Senators  demanding  our  seats,"  he  shouted,  in  his 
clear  and  resonant  voice.  The  door  was  slightly  opened,  and 
George  Coleman's  face  came  into  view. 

"  None  but  Senators  are  to  be  admitted,"  he  said,  hoarsely. 

"  Well,"  said  Voorhees,  "  I  am  a  Senator." 

"  I  know  you,"  Coleman  responded,  "  but  there  are  some 
whom  I  do  not  know." 

"  All  right,"  said  Voorhees,  "  let  me  in  and  I  will  identify 
the  Senators  as  they  pass  through." 

The  door  was  now  drawn  back  sufficiently  to  admit  of  the 
passage  of  one  man  through  it,  and  Voorhees,  passing  in,  took 
his  stand  at  the  opening.  Each  Senator,  as  he  squeezed  his 
way  through  the  throng  in  the  hall,  stood  at  the  opening  till 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


465 


Voorhees  had  gaid  "He  is  a  Senator,"  and  then  passed  in. 
The  police,  meanwhile,  stood  guard  on  the  outside,  shouting 
"Stand  back!"  to  the  pressing  crowd  with  endless  iteration, 
and  applied  their  clubs  freely  upon  the  heads  and  shoulders  of 
the  luckless  men  on  the  edge  of  the  throng,  to  enforce  compliance 
with  their  command. 

The  eleven  Republican  Senators — the  absent  four  of  the 
thirteen  hold-overs,  and  the  seven  newly-elected  men — were 
eventually  squeezed  out  of  the  throng,  by  the  crush  in  the  hall, 
into  the  Senate  Cham- 
ber. They  were  sur- 
prised, as  they  trudged 
along  to  their  seats,  to 
see  Adrain  in  the  chair 
and  the  Senate  appa- 
rently organized. 
That  was  an  emer- 
gency that  had  not 
occurred  to  them  in 
their  deliberations  as 
among  the  possibilities 
of  the  situation  they 
were  expected  to  con- 
front, and  the  plans 
they  had  determined 
upon  in  caucus  did  not 
meet  it.  Adrain 
seemed  to  realize  that 
he  had  an  indignant  and  determined  body  of  men  to  face,  and 
he  had  fortified  himself  for  the  encounter  behind  his  blandest 
air.  His  sardonic  face  was  wreathed  in  smiles,  and  he  met  the 
attacking  party  with  goading  suavity  and  good  nature. 

With  the  eleven  inside.  Senator  Stokes  arose  to  a  question  of 
privilege. 

"  We  have  come  here   to  organize  the  Senate  in   the  usual 
way,"  he  said. 

30 


William  D.  Daly. 


466  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

Then,  referriDg  to  the  rumors  which  represented  that  the 
Democrats  had  determined  not  to  admit  Senator  Bradley  to  his 
seat,  he  asked  President  Adrain  whether  Mr.  Bradley's  creden- 
tials would  be  accepted  along  with  the  others. 

"  The  Senate,"  smiled  Mr.  Adrain,  "  will  proceed  in  accord- 
ance with  the  usual  parliamentary  rules." 

Senator  Daly  the  next  instant  sent  to  the  Secretary's  desk  a 
paper  that  answered  Senator  Stokes's  inquiry  much  less  evasively. 
It  was  a  resolution  calling  for  a  special  committee,  to  be  named 
by  Adrain  and  to  examine  the  credentials,  and  preventing  the 
seatiog  of  any  Senators-elect  until  the  committee  had  reported 
the  credentials  back.  Every  one  understood  at  once  that  three 
of  the  Republican  Senators  would  find  it  difficult  to  get  their 
papers  out  of  the  hands  of  the  committee,  and  that  the  Senate 
was  to  be  organized  without  them.  Senator  Stokes  declared  the 
appointment  of  any  committee  to  pass  on  credentials  contrary  to 
all  precedent,  and  held  that  the  credential  itself  gave  the  Senator 
holding  it  a  title  to  his  seat.  The  Republicans  now  proposed  to 
stand  on  their  constitutional  rights,  he  declared.  They  were 
"determined  that  the  people  should  reap  the  fruit  of  their 
victory  last  fall,"  and  that  the  eleven  Senators,  constituting  the 
majority  of  the  Senate,  expected  to  organize  it.  Then,  turning 
his  face  to  Senator  Bradley,  he  asked  of  that  gentleman,  "  Have 
you  been  sworn  in  ?  " 

"  I  have,"  responded  the  Monmouth  Senator. 

" Have  you  your  credentials?"  Stokes  pursued. 

"  Ah ! "  put  in  Adrain,  blandly,  and  turning  to  Bradley, 
"  The  gentleman  has  no  right  to  speak  on  the  floor  except  by 
unanimous  consent." 

Colonel  Skirm  was  on  his  feet  in  an  instant. 

"  No  one  can  dispute  my  right  to  my  seat,"  he  exclaimed, 
"  nor  can  my  right  to  speak  here  be  challenged.  I  hold  in  my 
hands" — he  fluttered  a  bundle  of  papers  over  his  head — "the 
credentials,  not  only  of  the  Senator  from  Monmouth,  but  those 
of  every  other  newly-elected  Republican  Senator." 

"  Will  the  Chair  accept  these?  "  asked  Stokes. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  467 

"  There  is  a  resolution  before  the  Senate,"  Adrain  responded, 
*^  that  answers  that  question." 

Senator  Voorhees  leaped  into  the  center  of  the  floor  and,  in  a 
burst  of  indignant  eloquence,  demanded  the  recognition  of  the 
Chair  as  a  fully  qualified  Senator. 

"  The  gentleman  has  no  right  to  speak,"  said  Adrain,  with  a 
conciliatory  smile,  "  and  he  will  please  take  his  seat." 

Voorhees  went  on  with  his  fiery  speech,  in  spite  of  the 
ruling. 

"  The  gentleman  will  take  his  seat."  Adrain  brought  his 
gavel  down  on  the  marble  stand  before  him  to  enforce  attention. 

Still  Voorhees  defied  and  demanded. 

"  Sergeant-at-Arms  will  see  that  the  gentleman  takes  his 
seat,"  Adrain  ordered. 

Nathan  stepped  to  Voorhees's  side. 

"  Will  you  sit  down  ? "  he  asked  in  a  voice  that  could  be 
heard  all  over  the  chamber. 

"  No,  sir !  " — Voorhees  waved  the  official  of  Italian  counte- 
nance away — "  You're  not  my  Sergeant-at-Arms." 

"Ain't  I?"  blurted  Nathan.  "I  didn't  know  you  owned 
one,  sah  ! " 

It  was  eeen  that  the  eight  Senators  in  possession  intended  to 
adhere  to  the  plan  outlined  in  Daly's  resolution,  and  Stokes, 
gathering  his  papers  from  his  desk,  was  heard  to  say  that  nothing 
remained  but  an  organization  of  the  Senate  elsewhere.  The 
eleven  Republicans,  with  him  in  the  lead,  withdrew  to  the  lobby 
off  the  north  side  of  the  Chamber.  Before  he  closed  the  door 
he  thrust  his  head  through  to  shout  to  Mr.  Adrain  and  the 
Democratic  eight  that  if  they  wanted  to  be  part  of  the  real  or- 
ganization they  had  better  join  the  throng  inside.  It  was  half 
feared  that  Adrain  would  send  officers  to  clear  the  little  room, 
and  the  moment  the  door  was  closed  some  one  braced  his  back 
against  it.  There,  under  the  guidance  of  Stokes,  the  Republi- 
can Senate  was  called  to  order.  Senator  Rogers,  of  Camden, 
was  elected  President,  and  Wilbur  A.  Mott,  a  Newark  lawyer, 
Secretary.  Rogers  drew  several  sheets  of  foolscap  from  his 
pocket,  and  in  spite  of  Senator  Ketcham's  nervous  admonitions 


468 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


to  "  cut  it  short,"  read  a  somewhat  lengthy  speech  of  acceptance 
which  he  had  committed  to  memory. 

Senators  were  sent  to  the  Governor  to  notify  him  of  the 
organization.  The  Governor  met  them  with  a  pleasant  smile 
when  they  had  made  their  way,  through  the  windows  opening 
from  the  lobby,  into  the  Executive  Chamber,  but  a  similar  com- 
mittee from  the  "  Continuous  Senate  "  had  been  there  in  advance 
of  them,  and  he  dismissed  them  with  the  information  that  he  had 

"  already  transmitted  his 
message  to  the  Senate  of 
New  Jersey."  The  Re- 
publican Senators  had 
gone  there  with  the  full 
conviction  that  their 
organization  would  meet 
with  a  rebuff  at  his  hands, 
but  they  scarcely  expected 
to  be  confronted  by  so 
plump  a  recognition  of 
the  rival  organization. 
Governor  Werts  had 
taken  the  opinion  of  At- 
torney-General Stockton 
as  to  the  rights  of  the 
respective  Senates,  and 
the  Attorney- General  had 
sustained  the  Democratic 
contention  that  the  Senate 
was  a  continuous  body, 
and  that  the  newly-elected  members  must  present  their  creden- 
tials to  the  hold-over  thirteen. 

The  fact  that  this  opinion  had  been  rendered  was  known  all 
over  the  State.  The  Republican  preparations  for  the  contro- 
versy had  been  made  on  the  assumption  that  it  foreshadowed 
the  stand  the  Governor  would  hold  in  the  controversy.  But 
while  it  was  known  that  he  would  withhold  the  recognition  of 
his  department  from  the  Republican  Senate,  it  was  assumed  that 


Edward  C.  Stokes. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TKENTON.  469 

the  fact  that  the  "Continuous  Senate"  had  been  organized  with- 
out a  quorum  would  make  it  impossible  for  him  to  hold  any 
official  relations  with  it.  The  Governor  had  been  informed, 
however,  that  the  roll-call  revealed  the  presence  of  thirteen 
Senators,  and  as  thirteen  constituted  the  quorum  of  any  possible 
Senate,  he  had  been  beguiled  into  sending  his  annual  communi- 
-cation  to  it. 

Meanwhile,  the  House  of  Assembly,  with,  as  already  stated, 
a  large  Republican  majority,  had  organized  in  the  big  white 
Assembly  Chamber  without  any  friction.  John  I.  Holt,  of 
Passaic,  had  been  elected  Speaker,  and  ex-Assemblyman  J. 
Herbert  Potts,  of  Hudson,  Clerk.  A  committee  from  the 
Republican  Senate,  sent  to  notify  the  House  of  its  organiza- 
tion, had  quite  a  different  reception  from  that  which  had  been 
accorded  the  other  committee  in  the  Governor's  room.  It  was 
not  a  more  pleasant  or  a  more  genial  one,  but  it  was  a  more 
satisfactory  one.  The  enthusiastic  members  broke  into  cheers 
at  the  announcement  that  the  Senate  was  ready  for  business 
the  sympathizing  throng  in  the  crowded  galleries  echoed  the 
applause,  and  the  House  sent  a  committee  to  the  waiting  Sen- 
ators to  assure  them  of  its  distinguished  consideration  and  of  its 
readiness  to  join  with  them  in  perfecting  the  legislation  of  the 
State. 

Thus  recognized  by  its  sister  branch  of  the  Legislature  and 
discountenanced  by  the  Executive  Department,  the  Republican 
Senate  was  in  an  anomalous  position,  and  a  deadlock  in  legisla- 
tion supervened.  The  Senate  and  the  House  could  pass  bills, 
but  the  Governor  would  refuse  to  receive  them,  and  so  block 
their  way  to  the  statute-books. 

It  was  the  idea  of  some  of  the  Republicans  that  if  the  eleven 
Republican  Senators  could  secure  possession  of  the  Senate 
Chamber,  their  status  would  be  improved.  They  had  arranged 
to  hold  an  adjourned  meeting  in  the  evening,  and  the  crowd  of 
the  afternoon  hung  around  the  corridors  to  await  developments. 
There  were  shrieks,  and  cat  calls,  and  whistles,  and  frequent 
demands  for  a  bursting  of  the  locked  doors.  At  about  dusk 
Colonel  Murrell,  a  six-foot -high  colored  editor  and  politician  of 


470 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


Asbury  Park,  braced  himself  against  one  of  the  light  doors  at 
the  foot  of  the  gallery  stairs  till  it  yielded  to  his  pressure  and 
flew  open  with  a  crash.  Captain  John  Graham,  of  Jersey  City, 
the  same  who  had  so  materially  assisted  the  Gardner  Committee 
in  the  ballot  box  stuffing  investigation,  rushed  up  the  steps  into 
the  gallery,  threw  himself  over  the  balustrade,  and  swung  from 
one  of  the  gas  jets  fixed  in  the  Chamber  walls,  to  the  main  floor 
of  the  Senate;  rushed  to  the  big  folding  doors  that  opened  into  the 
corridor,  drew  back  the  bolts,  swung  them  open  to  the  mul- 
titude ;  and  the  crowd 
held  possession  of  the 
Chamber  till  the 
eleven  Republican 
Senators  marched  io 
in  the  evening  and 
held  a  little  glorifica- 
tion meeting  there. 

There  was  talk 
among  some  of  them 
of  swearing  in  a  posse 
of  special  deputies 
under  command  of  the 
Republican  Sheriff*  of 
the  county  to  hold  the 
Chamber  against  re- 
capture by  the  Demo- 
cratic Senators,  but 
when  it  was  remem- 
bered that  Governor 
Werts  had  power  to 
call  out  the  State  Militia,  it  was  seen  that  a  move  of  that 
kind  might  precipitate  an  ugly  conflict  of  authority,  and 
possibly  bloodshed;  and  that  idea  was  given  up.  The  Senators 
were  advised  that  the  mere  possession  of  the  Senate  Cham- 
ber gave  them  no  rights  that  they  could  not  as  well  exercise 
elsewhere;  and,  having  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  declared 
themselves  to  be  the  lawful  Senate  of  the  State,  they  picked  up* 


William  S.  Hancock. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         471 

their  hats,  and  went  away,  leaving  the  doors  open  for  any  who 
might  choose  to  enter.  Till  the  settlement  of  the  controversy 
the  Democratic  hold-overs  were  left  in  undisturbed  possession, 
and  the  eleven  Republican  Senators,  transacted  business  in  a 
little  committee- room  across  the  ball  from  the  Assembly 
Chamber. 

Governor  Werts  felt  that  the  honor  and  wisdom  of  his  admin- 
istration were  challenged  by  this  condition  of  affairs  that  made 
the  orderly  progress  of  legislation  impossible,  and  he  was  anxious 
to  find  some  way  of  taking  the  matter  into  the  courts.  His 
plans  to  that  end  were  handicapped  by  the  refusal  of  the  Re- 
publican Senators  to  aid  him  in  making  a  case  over  which  the 
courts  could  have  jurisdiction.  Their  contention  was  that  the 
Legislature  and  the  judiciary  were  co-ordinate  branches  of  the 
State  government,  and  that  the  courts  could  not,  by  any  decision 
that  they  might  render,  make  a  Senate  or  unmake  one.  There 
was  an  idea  prevalent  at  one  time  that  the  issue  might  be  over 
some  of  the  legislation  enacted  by  the  two  Houses,  but  the  in- 
ability to  get  a  bill  passed  by  them  beyond  the  Governor's  office 
prevented  it  from  becoming  a  law  which  could  be  made  an  object 
of  contest  by  those  upon  whom  it  bestowed  office.  Later  on  the 
two  Houses,  in  joint  meeting  assembled,  elected  William  S. 
Hancock,  of  Mercer,  a  rich  Trenton  potter,  whose  years  of 
active  work  at  the  accountant's  desk  had  peculiarly  fitted  him 
for  the  duties  of  the  office,  to  succeed  General  Heppenheimer  as 
State  Comptroller;  and  George  B.  Swain,  a  rich  lumber  mer- 
chant of  Newark,  to  succeed  George  R.  Gray  as  State  Treasurer ; 
and  it  was  believed  that  the  contest  of  these  two  gentlemen 
to  wrest  the  offices  from  the  two  in  possession  would  make  a 
case  of  which  the  courts  could  take  cognizance.  When  it  was 
remembered,  however,  that  the  Governor  would  refuse  to  sign 
their  commissions,  on  the  ground  that  the  Senate  which  had 
joined  the  House  in  their  election  was  not  the  lawful  Senate, 
and  that  without  such  a  commission  the  two  new  incumbents 
could  have  no  standing  as  claimants,  it  was  seen  that  that  inci- 
dent offered  no  hope  of  relief. 


472  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

It  was  determined,  however,  to  bring  the  matter  into  court. 
The  Governor  called  Frederic  W.  Stevens,  a  well-known 
municipal  lawyer  of  Newark,  and  R.  V.  Lindabury,  of  Eliza- 
beth, into  consultation  with  the  Attorney- General ;  and  after 
much  poring  over  books  and  countless  consultations,  they 
patched  up  a  case  over  which  they  thought  the  court  might  pos- 
sibly take  jurisdiction.  This  proceeding  was  on  the  assumption 
that  one  or  the  other  of  the  Senates  was  a  disturber  of  the  pub- 
lic peace,  and  both  Rogers  and  Adrain,  the  presiding  officers  of 
the  rival  Senates,  were  called  to  the  bar  to  show  by  what  right 
they  acted. 

The  issue  was  argued  in  court,  with  much  skill  and  learning 
for  the  Republicans,  by  Thomas  N.  McCarter,  CortJandt  Parker 
and  Joseph  Coult  of  Newark,  Samuel  H.  Grey  of  Camden, 
and  John  W.  Griggs  of  Passaic;  and  for  the  Democrats  by 
Allan  L.  McDermott  of  Hudson,  F.  W.  Stevens  of  Essex,  R. 
V.  Lindabury  and  Attorney- General  Stockton  himself.  The 
Republicans,  for  one  part  of  their  case,  denied  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  Judges,  and  on  the  main  question  urged  that  as  the  Con- 
stitution declared  that  the  Senate  should  consist  of  one  Senator 
from  each  of  the  twenty- one  counties  in  the  State,  the  hold-overs 
had  no  right  to  disfranchise  any  one  of  the  counties  by  refusing 
to  accept  the  credentials  of  an  elected  member ;  that  the  creden- 
tial itself  constituted  the  title  of  the  man  holding  it  to  his  seat, 
and  that  the  Senate's  power  to  judge  of  the  qualifications,  elec- 
tion and  return  of  its  members  did  not  attach  till  the  twenty- 
one  counties  were  represented  on  the  floor  and  the  elect  sworn  in. 

The  Democratic  side  presented  a  variety  of  views  for  the 
court  to  select  from.  Mr.  McDermott  held  that  the  Senate  was 
a  continuous  body,  and  that  the  new  men  were  not  Senators 
until  their  credentials  had.  been  passed  upon ;  that  the  thirteen 
hold-overs  were  the  Senate  of  New  Jersey,  and  that,  as  the 
Democratic  nine  were  a  majority  of  the  thirteen,  they  consti- 
tuted a  quorum  that  had  a  right  to  organize  provisionally  by 
placing  Adrain  in  the  chair.  Mr.  Lindabury  addressed  his 
argument  only  to  the  question  of  jurisdiction,  and  Mr.  Stevens 
treated  the  court  to  a  surprise  in  his  insistment  that  neither 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


473 


Senate  had  a  right  to  organize,  and  that,  consequently,  neither 
Adrain  nor  Rogers  was  a  properly-elected  President. 

The  court  held  the  matter  under  advisement  for  two  or  three 
days.  The  guessing  politicians  predicted  that  it  would  uphold 
the  regularity  of  neither  of  the  organizations,  but  would  lay 
down  a  rule  by  which  the  rivalry  might  be  compromised  and  a 
Senate  organized  for  legislation.  Almost  before  these  guesses 
had  taken  shape,  the  Judges  met  in  conference,  and,  by  a  vote 
which  would  have  been  unanimous  but  for  the  dissent  of  Jus- 
tice Abbett,  decided  all  the  points  in  the  controversy. 

The  aged  Chief  Justice  __ 

Beasley  read  their  opin- 
ion as  formulated  for 
them.  Brushing  aside 
all  the  technicalities  that 
had  been  thrust  into  the 
case  by  the  lawyers,  he 
ruled  that  the  Senate  was 
not  a  continuous  body  ; 
that  the  credentials  of 
the  newly-elected  consti- 
tuted a  title  to  their  seats, 
and  that  Mr.  Adrain  was 
not  the  President  of  a 
Senate.  The  necessary 
inference  was  that  the 
eleven  Republican  Sena- 
tors constituted  the  Sen- 
ate, and  that  Mr.  Rogers  was  rightfully  in  office.  Several  weeks 
later  Judge  Abbett  filed  an  opinion,  in  which  he  held  the  con- 
verse of  these  propositions,  except  as  to  Adrain.  His  ruling 
contained  a  remarkably  strong  argument  in  support  of  the 
proposition  that  the  State  Senate  is  a  continuous  body,  and 
made  out  a  case  from  that  stand-point  that  commended  itself  to 
the  judgment  of  many  of  the  best  lawyers  of  both  parties  in  the 
State. 

The  nine  Democratic  hold-over  Senators  had,  however,  mean- 


George  B.  Swain. 


474  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 

while  accepted  the  decision  of  the  Chief  Justice  and  his  con- 
senting colleagues,  and  joined  with  the  eleven  Republicans  in 
making  the  Senate,  whose  regularity  was  not  afterwards  disputed. 
With  the  House  and  with  the  Governor,  it  began  the  session's 
real  work  of  legislation,  and  continued  the  sitting  until  the 
middle  of  May.  Many  of  the  bills  that  the  two  Houses  enacted 
were  aimed  at  the  dispossession  of  Democrats  from  places  for 
which  the  preceding  Democratic  legislatures  had  appointed 
them,  and  the  naming  of  Republicans  in  their  stead.  The  cer- 
tainty that  Governor  Werts,  who  himself  was  a  Democrat, 
would  veto  them,  led  to  a  two  days'  session  after  the  close  of  the 
regular  session,  for  the  purpose  of  overriding  his  judgment. 
Even  then  final  adjournment  was  not  declared,  but  recess  was 
taken  until  fail,  to  afford  opportunity  for  the  enactment  of  a 
new  Assembly  districting  bill,  in  the  event  of  the  Court  of 
Errors  setting  aside  on  appeal  the  Supreme  Court's  decision 
directing  the  election  of  Assemblymen  by  counties. 


APPENDIX    A. 


The  following  communication  from  Charles  B.  Thurston,  of 
Jersey  City,  published  in  the  Newark  "Advertiser,"  during  the 
pendency  of  the  Water-front  bills  in  the  Legislature,  traces  the 
title  of  the  Jersey  Associates  and  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company  to  the  Jersey  City  water  front : 

"It  would  puzzle  most  of  the  readers  of  the  'Daily'  to  tell  exactly  the 
derivation  and  the  present  status  of  the  institution  styled  'The  Associates  of 
the  Jersey  Company,'  who  claim  to  retain  the  ownership  of  the  water  front  at 
the  foot  of  Jersey  City  streets,  from  which  the  Anti-Monopoly  Aldermen  are 
seeking  to  oust  them.  The  Dutch  West  India  Company,  chartered  on  June 
3d,  1621,  having  established  their  colonial  headquarters  on  Manhattan  Island, 
granted  to  all  such  as  should  plant  any  colony  in  New  Netherland  certain 
freedoms  and  exemptions.  Concerning  these,  Mr.  Broadhead  says:  'Reserv- 
ing to  themselves  the  Island  of  Manhattan,  *  *  *  to  private  persons 
disposed  to  settle  themselves  in  any  other  part  of  New  Netherland,  the  com- 
pany offered  the  absolute  property  of  as  much  land  as  the  emigrants  might  be 
able  properly  to  improve  '  These  privileges  were  confined  to  members  of  the 
"West  India  Company.  Any  member  who  should  plant  there  within  four 
years  a  colony  of  fifty  persons  was  to  be  acknowledged  as  a  Patroon  or  feudal 
chief  of  the  territory  thus  colonized.  Each  colony  might  have  lands  sixteen 
miles  long  on  one  side  of  a  navigable  river,  or,  if  both  banks  are  occupied, 
eight  miles  on  each  side,  extending  as  far  back  into  the  country  'as  the  situa- 
tion of  the  occupiers  will  permit.'  Each  Patroon  was  required,  as  a  condition 
of  his  title,  to  satisfy  the  Indians  for  the  land  taken  by  him.  If  he  estab- 
lished a  city,  he  was  to  have  '  power  to  establish  officers  and  magistrates  there.' 

"Desirable  sites  for  settlement  on  such  favorable  terms  were  snapped  up 
quickly.  Kiliaea  Van  Rensselaer  seized  the  regions  adjacent  to  Fort  (grange 
(called  by  the  Indians  Semesseck),  now  Albany.  Samuel  Godyn  and  Samuel 
Blommaert  together  appropriated  lands  on  the  'south  corner  of  the  bay  of 
South  river.'  This  was  not  the  New  Jersey  river  of  that  name,  but  the  Dela- 
ware river,  and  the  settlement  was  in  what  is  now  known  as  Cape  May  county. 
Michael  Parroo,  the  thrifty  Burgomaster  of  Amsterdam,  appropriated  to  him- 
self the  southern  portion  of  the  New  Jersey  shore  opposite  to  Manhattan 
Island. 

"In  the  first  deed  of  record  in  New  Netherland,  dated  July  12th,  1630,  the 
Director  and  Council  of  New  Netherland,  'residing  on  the  Island  of  Mana- 
hatas  and  the  Fort  Amsterdam,  under  the  authority  of  their  High  Mighti- 
nesses the  Lords  Sta'es  General  of  the  United  Netherland.  and  the  incor- 
porated West  India  Company,  at  their  Chambers  at  Amsterdam,'  witnessed  and 
declared  that  Arommeaun,  Teckwappo  and  Sackwomeck,  inhabitants  and 
joint  owners  of  Hobocan  Hackingh,  had  appeared  before  them  and  averred 
that,  '  for  and  in  consideration  of  a  certain  quantity  of  merchandise,  which 
they  acknowledge  to  have  received,'  they  had  sold  Hobocan  Hackingh  ta- 
'  Mr.  Michiel  Parroo,  absent.' 

(475) 


476  MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


"On  the  twenty-second  of  November,  in  the  same  year,  as  appears  by  the 
■deed  making  the  second,  as  the  foregoing  was  the  first,  conveyance  of  land  in 
East  Jersey,  the  Director  and  Council  witnessed  and  declared  that  '  Kikitoann 
and  Aairoun,  Virginians,  Inhabitants  and  joint  owners  of  the  land  named 
Ahasimus  and  the  peninsula  Aressick,'  for  themselves  and  Mingm,  Wathkath 
and  Canwips,  joint  proprietors,  in  consideration  of  certain  parcels  of  goods 
given  them,  sold  and  delivered  to  '  the  Noble  Lord  Michiel  Parroo,  the  afore- 
said land  Ahasimus  and  Aressick,  *  *  *  extending  along  the  river 
Mawirtius  and  the  Island  of  the  Manahatas  on  the  east  side,  and  the  Island 
Hobocan  Hackingh  on  the  north  side,  surrounded  by  swamps,  which  are  suffi- 
ciently distinct  boundaries.' 

"Hobocan  was  the  Indian  name  for  tobacco  pipe,  and,  with  the  suffix 
Hackingh,  signified  '  the  land  of  the  tobacco  pipe,'  a  peculiar  stone  found  there 
furnishing  the  heads  of  their  pipes.  Aressick,  signifying  burying-ground, 
was  the  southeasterly  portion  of  the  land  now  covered  by  Jersey  City,  and  was 
known  as  Paulus  Hoeck  for  many  years  afterwards,  where  a  British  fort  was 
established  during  the  Kevolutionary  war. 

"Ahasimus  included  all  the  upland  east  of  Bergen  Hill  except  Paulus 
Hoeck.  It  was  separated  from  the  Hoeck  by  a  salt  marsh  extending  from 
Communipaw  cove  to  the  cove  of  Ahasimus,  now  Harsimus. 

"Aressick  and  Ahasimus  together  included  all  the  interval  land  from 
Hoboken  to  Communipaw  bay.  Pavonia,  where  the  Erie  ferries  are  estab- 
lished east  of  Harsimus  cove,  is  a  Latinized  version  of  Parroo's  name, 
bestowed  on  the  district  by  himself. 

"  It  was  natural  that  trouble  should  arise  between  the  company  and  the 
Patroons  to  whom  they  had  delegated  these  large  powers.  On  May  13th, 
1634,  their  High  Mightinesses  the  Lords  States  General,  deputed  some  Lords 
from  their  Assembly  to  examine  and  report  on  the  differences  which  had 
arisen  between  the  Patroons  and  the  company. 

"The  result  was  that  the  company  bought  out  Parroo.  The  consideration 
paid  him,  26,000  florins  (about  |I0,400),  was  no  doubt  a  handsome  bonus  for 
the  lands  now  covered  by  Jersey  City  and  Hoboken,  for  which  he  had  dick- 
ered goods  and  merchandise  with  Teckwappo  and  Kikitauw,  and  the  other 
Indian  owners  four  years  before. 

'■Abraham  Isaacsen  Planck  bought  the  whole  of  Paulus  Hoeck  from  the 
company  in  1638,  and  paid  250  guilders  for  it.  He  leased  it  with  his  house 
and  garden  to  Cornells  Arissen  in  1644  for  six  years.  The  rent  was  to  be  100 
guilders  the  first  year  and  160  guilders  a  year  afterwards,  'if  Jan  Potagie 
[Soup  John]  continues  to  reside  on  the  Hoeck  ;  but  if  said  Potagie  shall  leave, 
the  lessee  shall  pay  for  the  aforesaid  five  years  180  guilders.' 

"Aert  Tennissen  Van  Putten,  the  first  white  resident  of  Hoboken,  was  also 
the  first  to  establish  there  a  brewery  of  the  beverage  with  which  the  name  of 
the  city  has  since  been  so  widely  associated.  He  leased  the  farm  or  bouwerie 
from  the  company  for  twelve  years  from  January  1st,  1641,  and  his  rent  was 
fixed  as  '  the  fourth  sheaf  with  which  God  Almighty  shall  favor  the  field.' 

"Of  the  two  houses  built  in  Pavonia  in  1633  while  Parroo  owned  it,  one 
was  at  Ahasimus  and  occupied  by  Cornells  Van  Voorst,  who  came  from  Hol- 
land to  be  Parroo's  head  commander,  and  continued  in  it  under  the  company. 
It  was  in  this  house  that,  according  to  Broadhead,  Van  Voorst  entertained 
Wouter  Van  Twiller  and  good  Dominie  Everardus  Bogardus,  the  husband  of 
Anneke  Jans,  with  jirincely  hospitality,  and,  upon  parting  with  his  guests, 
fired  a  salute  from  a  swivel  in  front  of  his  house,  which  was  burned  down 
tlirough  a  spark  from  the  swivel  lodging  on  the  reed-thatched  roof.  The 
other  house  was  at  Communipaw,  where  Jan  Evertse  Bont,  formerly  Parroo's 
Superintendent,  had  his  headquarters.  He  afterwards,  like  the  Hoboken  ten- 
ant, leased  the  bouwerie  from  the  company  at  a  rent  of  one-fourth  of  the  crops. 

"The  point  at  the  mouth  of  Mill  creek,  Jan  de  Lacher's  Hoeck  (John  the 
Laugher's  Point),  was  probably  so  named  because  Jan  Evertse  Bont  was  a  jolly 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.  477 


Dutchman.  Governor  Kieft  and  Council  afterwards  granted  Bont  a  patent  for 
this  bouwerie,  containing  eighty-four  morgans.  It  was  at  Jan  de  Lacher's 
Hoeck,  in  1643,  while  Bont  was  still  a  tenant,  that  the  Pavonia  massacre  oc- 
curred, in  which  Governor  Kieft's  soldiers  killed  eighty  sleeping  Indians, 
sparing  neither  squaw  nor  papoose,  and  thus  kindling  the  Indian  war,  which 
blazed  fiercely  for  two  years  afterwards. 

"Jolly  Jan  Evertse  Bont  afterwards  moved  to  Breucklen,  where  he  was  ap- 
pointed a  Scliepen  in  1646.  On  his  reappointment  in  1654  he  refused  to  accept 
oflBce,  an  example  which  is  rarely  followed  by  the  modern  Brooklyn  politician. 

"Governor  Carteret  when  the  English  gained  possession  of  the  New  Neth- 
erlands, confirmed  to  Abraham  Isaacsen  Planck,  in  May,  1668,  by  a  document 
known  as  Patent  No.  5,  the  title  he  had  received  from  the  Dutch  West  India 
Company  for  Paulus  Hoeck,  and  this  title  forms  the  starting-point  of  that  of 
the  Associates  of  the  Jersey  Company. 

"  In  1669,  John  Abeel,  attorney  in  fact  for  the  owner,  conveyed  Paulus 
Hoeck  to  Cornelius  Van  Voorst,  who  was  probably  a  son  of  Cornelius,  Parroo's- 
'head  commander.' 

"The  New  York  'Mercury,'  of  July  2d,  1764,  announces  that  'The  long 
wished  for  ferry  is  now  established  and  kept  across  the  North  Kiver  from  the 
place  called  Powless's  Hook  to  the  City  of  New  York ;  and  boats  properly 
constructed,  as  well  for  the  convenience  of  Passengers  as  for  the  carrying  over 
of  Horses  and  Carriages,  do  now  constantly  ply  from  one  shore  to  the  other.' 
The  route  to  Philadelphia  prior  to  that  time  had  been  by  boat  to  Amboy  to 
connect  with  the  stage,  but  it  was  desirable  to  quicken  the  journey  by  making 
it  an  all-stage  route.  A  landing-place  for  the  passengers  was  secured  at  Paulus 
Hook  from  still  another  Cornelius  Van  Vorst.  He  sold  Cornelissen,  one  of 
the  ferrymen,  a  site  for  a  tavern,  afterwards  known  as  Major  Hunt's  tavern ; 
but  he  did  not  scruple  to  endeavor  to  secure  the  ferry  afterwards  for  him- 
self, for  in  1766  he  petitioned  the  New  York  Common  Council  for  the 
exclusive  privilege  of  ferriage  between  New  York  and  Paulus  Hook,  which, 
however,  was  refused  him. 

"  It  was  not  till  1804  that  capitalists  realized  the  future  importance  of 
Paulus  Hook  and  commissioned  lawyer  Anthony  Dey  to  negotiate  with  Cor- 
nelius Van  Vorst  for  its  purchase.  Alexander  Hamilton  examined  the  title 
and  acted  as  counsel  with  Anthony  Dey.  On  February  22d,  1804,  Van  Vorst 
transferred  the  property  to  Dey,  in  consideration  of  an  annuity  of  $6,000, 
equivalent  to  a  lump  sum  of  $100,000. 

"  The  sale  was  made  subject  to  a  lease  of  Paulus  Hook,  which  Van  Vorst 
had  made  to  Major  Hunt,  the  keeper  of  the  tavern  where  the  stage  put  up, 
which  lease  was  to  expire  May  1st,  1805.  The  concluding  words  of  the  de- 
scription of  property  in  the  deed  were  as  follows  :  'And  so  along  to  the  North 
bay  called  Harsimus  bay,  of  the  North  or  Hudson's  river  aforesaid  and  so  to 
extend  into  the  river  and  bays  aforesaid  as  far  as  the  right  of  the  said  Cor- 
nelius Van  Vorst  extends;  together  with  the  right  of  ferry  from  thence  across 
Hudsons  river.'  This  deed  was  acknowledged  before  Daniel  Van  Reipen,  a 
Judge  of  the  Inferior  Court  of  Common  Pleas  of  Bergen  county. 

"  By  another  contract  dated  a  month  later  Anthony  Dey  agreed  to  keep  in 
repair  a  road  on  the  causeway  adjoining  Paulus  Hook  without  any  expense  to 
Van  Vorst ;  to  pay  one-half  of  Major  Hunt's  outlay  on  the  new  wharf  and 
landing  at  the  ferry,  and  a  fair  valuation  for  his  buildings.  An  indorsement 
on  this  contract  signed  by  David  Hunt  shows  that  the  buildings  in  Paulus 
Hook  in  1804  were  not  numerous.  It  was  'The  buildings  to  be  paid  for  are  a 
dwelling  house  that  Murphy  lives  in,  the  hay  scales,  a  store  house,  the  shed, 
and  six  small  stables,  a  large  cistern,  and  two  pumps.'  Van  Vorst  had  agreed 
to  pay  Hunt  for  '  the  old  dwelling  house,  and  the  two  large  stables.' 
.  "By  an  agreement  dated  April  16th,  1804,  David  Hunt  surrendered  his 
lease  at  once,  and  Anthony  Dey  agreed  that  '  David  Hunt  shall  have  the  privi- 
lege of  three  days'  horse  racing  upon  the  course  on  the  Hook  within  the  course 


478  MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON. 


•of  the  next  month.'  By  another  agreement  Dey  leased  to  Major  Hunt  the 
right  of  the  ferrv  from  Paulus  Hook  to  New  York  at  an  annual  rent  of 
$J,500. 

"  On  April  I8th,  1804,  Anthony  Dey  and  wife,  of  New  Yord  City,  conveyed 
Paulus  Hook  to  Abraham  Varick,  of  the  same  city,  merchant.  The  conveyance, 
which  included  the  ferry  right  and  buildings,  was  s-ubject  to  a  mortgage  to 
secure  the  payment  of  Vaa  Vorsi's  annuity.  The  next  day  Abraham  Varick 
conveyed  to  Kichard  Varick,  Jacob  Kadclifl  and  Anthony  Dey,  as  tenants  in 
common,  the  lan^ls  on  Paulus  Hook,  together  wiih  the  right  of  ferry.  Refer- 
ence was  made  in  the  deed  to  a  map  tliac  had  been  made  for  the  projectors,  by 
Joseph  F.  Mangin,  of  New  York.  Hudson  street  was  projected  along  the 
river  front.  'Also,'  the  deed  continued,  'the  present  wharves  and  the  ri^lit  of 
soil  from  high  to  low  water  mark,  to  extend  from  North  to  South  tlie  breadth 
of  480  feet  on  Hudson  street,  and  the  right  and  title  to  the  land  under  water 
in  Hudson's  river,  opposite  to  the  said  premises  above  granted,  together  with 
the  exchisive  right  of  ferry  from  Paulus  Hook  to  the  city  of  New  York  and 
elsewhere.'  This  document  shows  that  the  ancient  proprietors  of  Paulus  Hook 
made  a  claim  no  less  sweeping  of  their  right  to  sell  the  water  front  than  that 
which  is  now  made  l)y  their  successors,  'The  Associates  of  the  Jersey  Com- 
pany.' This  deed  and  the  foregoing  were  acknowledged  before  Judge  James 
Kent,  afterwards  New  York's  greatest  Chancellor. 

"  By  a  covenant  in  the  deed  it  was  agreed  to  affix  such  a  rental  of  the  land 
as  would  pay  the  $6,000  annuity  to  Van  Vorst  until  it  should  be  released  or 
extinguished,  when  the  money  should  be  applied  to  their  own  use. 

"They  also  covenanted  to  unite  with  the  purchasers  of  lots  of  the  future 
city,  in  an  application  to  the  New  Jersey  Legislature  for  a  law  to  incorporate 
Trustees  for  the  fund  so  raised. 

'•  By  an  agreement  dated  October  11th,  1804,  it  appeared  that  Varick,  Rad- 
-cliff  and  Dey,  with  their  associates,  had  divided  up  the  land  on  Paulus  Hook 
into  one  thousand  shares,  and  the  following  list  of  shareholders  gives  the  first 
record  of  the  names  of  those  associated  with  them  in  the  purchase :  Richard 
Varick,  Jacob  Radcliff  and  Anthony  Dey,  each  100  shares;  Joseph  Bloom- 
field,  20 ;  J.  N.  Gumming,  50 ;  William  Halsey,  50;  Alexander  C.  McWhor- 
ter,  30;  Elisha  Boudinot,  5;  Samuel  Boyd,  20;  Archibald  Gracie,  40;  John 
B.  Coles,  40  ;  James  Thomson,  20  ;  David  B.  Ogden,  20  ;  John  Wells,  30  ; 
John  Radcliff,  20  ;  John  Rhea,  20 ;  David  Hunt,  W  ;  Joseph  Lyon,  20 ;  David 
Dunham,  20 ;  Abraham  Varick,  20 ;  Peter  W.  Radcliff,  40 ;  Samuel  Hayes, 
Jr.,  5  ;  William  S.  Pennington,  20  ;  L.  S.  Panbell,  20  ;  William  V.  Wolf,  40  ; 
Aaron  Ogden,  25  ;  William  Radcliff',  Jr.,  20 ;  Samuel  Pennington,  5  ;  John 
A.  Davenport,  10;  J.  E.  A.  Birch,  10;  E.  Leavenworth,  20;  Isaac  William- 
son, 20;  Amasa  Jackson,  5  ;  Thomas  Ward,  10  ;  Isaac  Kibbe,  5. 

''  Varick,  Radcliff'  and  Dey  are  well  known  in  the  history  of  New  York, 
Elisha  Boudinot,  J.  N.  Gumming,  William  S.  Pennington  and  Alexander  C. 
McWhorter  were  distinguished  citizens  of  Newark.  Boudinot,  brother  of 
Elias  Boudinot,  of  Revolutionary  fame  in  the  Continental  Congress,  was  cho- 
sen Secretary  of  the  New  Jersey  Council  of  Safety  during  the  Revolution,  and 
was  for  seven  years  a  Justice  of  the  New  Jersey  Supreme  Court.  Colonel 
Aaron  Ogden's  term  as  Senator  in  Congress  had  ended  the  year  before  the  pur- 
chase of  Paulus  Hook,  and  he  was  elected  Governor  in  1812.  He  had  served 
with  distinction  in  the  Revolutionary  W^ar.  He  was  succeeded  in  the  Gover- 
norship by  William  S  Pennington,  another  of  the  Associates,  who  had  been 
a  Lieutenant  under  Washington.  He  also  was  a  Justice  of  the  New  Jersey 
Supreme  Court,  and  afterwards  a  Judge  of  the  United  States  District  Court  in 
New  Jersey  Boudinot,  Pennington  and  Gumming  were  Directors  in  the 
Newark  Banking  and  Insurance  Company,  of  which  Boudinot  was  President. 
It  was  organized  in  May,  1804,  during  the  negotiations  for  the  purchase  of 
Paulus  Hook,  and  had  secured  authority  to  establish  a  branch  at  Paulu-(  Hook, 
jn  contempl  ition  of  the  success  of  this  early  speculation  in  Jersey  City  lots. 


MODERN  BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         479 


It  was  Elisha  Boudinot  and  General  Gumming  with  other  Newarkers  inter- 
ested in  Paulus  Hook  who  started  Robert  Fulton  with  a  capital  of  $50,000  in 
the  building  of  steam  ferryboats  for  their  new  franchise.  The  lirst  boat  fur- 
nished, 'The  Jersey,'  made  her  first  regular  trips  July  17th,  1812. 

"Joseph  Bloomfield,  who  held  twenty  shares  in  the  Associates  stock,  was 
Governor  at  the  time  of  the  purchase  of  Paulus  Hi, ok.  Three  of  the  Associates, 
Bloomfield,  Ogden  and  Pennington,  held  the  New  Jersey  Governorship  during 
the  twelve  years  from  1803  to  1815;  a  foui-th,  Isaac  H.  Williamson,  father  of 
ex-Chancellor  Williamson,  was  Governor  another  twelve  years,  from  1817  to 
1829.  As  before  the  Comtitution  of  1844  the  Governor's  term  was  but  one 
year,  it  is  apparent  that  the  purchasers  of  Paulus  Hook  had  associated  with 
them  the  leading  men  in  New  Jersey  afJairs. 

"One  month  after  the  apportionment  of  the  shares  of  Paulus  Hook  prop- 
erty, November  10th,  18U4,  the  shareholders  received  a  perpetual  charter  as 
'The  Associates  of  the  Jersey  Company.'  It  was  drawn  by  Alexander  Ham- 
ilton. It  allowed  them  to  elect  their  own  Trustees  to  carry  out  the  covenant 
in  regard  to  paying  Van  Vorst  his  annuity.  Sections  2  and  3  of  the  charter 
provide : 

"  '  Sec.  2.  That  the  said  Associates  and  their  successors  shall  have  power  to 
make  and  lay  out  all  streets  and  squares  upon  all  and  every  part  of  the  said 
premises,  and  to  establish  such  as  have  already  been  laid  out,  and  from  time 
to  time  to  regulate  the  same,  *  *  *  and  to  order  and  regulate  the  building 
sf  all  dicks,  piers  and  wharves,  and  of  storehouses  and  buildings  thereon. 

" '  Sec.  3.  That  the  said  Associates  shall  have  the  privilege  of  erecting  or 
building  any  docks,  wharves  and  piers  opposite  to  and  adjoining  the  said 
premises  on  the  Hudson  river  and  the  bays  thereof,  as  far  as  they  may  deem 
it  necessary  for  the  improvement  of  the  said  premises  or  the  benefit  of  com- 
merce, and  to  appropriate  the  same  to  their  own  use.' 

"The  Associates  claim  that  under  these  sections,  which  have  never  been 
repealed  except  as  regards  the  governmental  powers  contained  therein,  the 
right  to  maintain  their  docks  as  at  present  located  cannot  be  taken  away  by 
Jersey  City  ;  that  the  corporation  of  Jersey  City  never  owned  or  pretended  to 
own  the  water  front,  as  New  York  does  hers,  under  a  special  grant,  and  that 
the  Associates  do  own  such  parts  of  it  as  they  have  not  conveyed  away. 

"  The  annuity  to  Cornelius  Van  Vorst  was  soon  settled  up,  and  the  first  and 
second  dividends  of  three  per  cent,  each  were  paid  to  the  Associates  in  1813, 
The  lands  were  gradually  disposed  of  until  nothing  remained  unsold  but  the 
made  land  east  of  Hudson  street,  the  most  easterly  street  shown  by  their 
original  map  of  the  contemplated  improvement  of  Paulus  Hook,  and  it  is  over 
this  made  land  that  the  Jersey  City  Aldermen  propose  to  push  the  streets  to 
tide-water. 

"  Previous  attempts  were  made  in  1850  and  again  in  1869  by  the  Aldermen 
to  assert  their  right  to  extend  the  streets  over  the  lands  of  the  Associates,  but 
the  New  Jersey  courts  decided  against  them. 

"  Ex-Senator  Leon  Abbett,  Corporation  Counsel  of  Jersey  City,  declares  his 
confidence  in  the  success  of  the  suits  he  has  brought  for  the  extension  of  these 
streets." 


APPENDIX    B, 


This  letter  from  Charles  C.  Black,  President  of  the  State  Tax 
Board,  as  to  the  extent  to  which  the  Railroad  Tax  act  equalizes 
the  tax  burdens  between  the  railroads  and  the  individuals,  may 
be  of  interest : 

"  The  points  involved  in  your  inquiry  are  not  new  ones  to  me.  From  my 
observation,  I  would  say  that  the  average  tax  rate  throughout  the  various  tax- 
ing districts  of  New  Jersey  would  be  about  |1.50  on  the  hundred,  or  $15  per 
thousand  of  ratables.  I  made  a  calculation  in  the  year  1893,  with  all  the 
various  tax  rates  before  me,  and  it  amounted  to  about  that  sum.  You  under- 
stand, of  course,  that  the  tax  rate  varies  in  the  diflferent  taxing  districts  from 
year  to  year,  but  the  total  average  does  not  vary  much  from  the  above-indi- 
cated, according  to  my  observation  and  calculation. 

Second.  It  is  a  fact  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  personal  property  of  indi- 
viduals escapes  taxes— more  so  in  some  districts  than  in  others— and  this  is 
particularly  so  in  the  large  cities,  where  personal  property  is  so  easily  con- 
cealed from  the  Assessors.  Thus  :  For  the  year  1894  the  relative  value  of  per- 
sonal property  to  real  estate  in  Hudson  county  was  8j\j  per  cent,  of  the  realty ; 
in  Camden  county  it  was  Vj^jj  per  cent,  of  the  realty,  while  in  Hunterdon 
county  it  was  37x5  P^^  cent,  of  the  realty,  and  in  Mercer  county  it  was  25j% 
per  cent,  of  the  realty  ;  in  Salem  county  it  was  33y^(y  per  cent,  of  the  realty  ; 
in  Somerset  county  it  was  29  ^"ij  per  cent,  of  the  realty;  in  Sussex  county  it 
was  30j*(j  per  cent,  of  the  realty,  while  in  Essex  county  it  was  17j^q  per  cent, 
of  the  realty.  It  is  also  true  that  in  the  assessment  of  real  estate  there  are 
but  few  taxing  districts  and  counties  in  which  the  realty  is  assessed  at  its  true 
or  cash  value.     It  ranges  from  50  per  cent,  to  its  true  or  cash  value  on  up. 

"The  application  to  be  made  of  this  fact  to  the  inquiry  you  make  in  com- 
parison witli  railroad  property  is  this :  I  think  it  is  a  fact,  as  shown  from  the 
reports  of  the  State  Board  of  Assessors,  that  the  railroad  property,  both  real 
and  personal,  including  their  franchises,  is  assessed  by  that  Board  at  substan- 
tially its  true  or  cash  value,  wliich,  of  course,  is  in  excess  in  valuation  of  the 
realty  and  personalty  of  individuals.  The  tax  rate,  particularly  in  the  cities, 
is  larger  or  higher  tlian  that  of  the  railroads,  but  the  increased  value  plus  the 
assessment  of  all  the  personalty  of  the  railroads,  would,  in  my  judgment  and 
observation,  substantially  counterbalance  the  great  amount  of  personalty  of 
individuals  that  escape  taxes  and  the  low  percentage  of  value  of  the  realty,  in 
most  of  the  counties,  of  individuals  ;  therefore  I  have  thought  that,  so  far  as 
equality  is  concerned,  the  practical  effect  is  not  so  unequal.  There  is  this  ob- 
servation, however,  to  be  made,  namely,  that,  by  reason  of  the  railroad  prop- 
erty paying  the  large  proportion  of  the  State  expenses,  based  upon  its  value, 
and  as  the  greater  proportion  or  bulk  of  such  property  is  located  in  Hudson 
county,  it  throws  upon  tliat  county,  indirectly,  the  greater  proportion  of  the 
State  expenses.  I  think  this  is  an  evil  for  which  the  citizens  of  this  county 
have  some  just  cause  of  complaint. 

(480) 


MODERN   BATTLES  OF  TRENTON.         481 


"  I  am  not  quite  clear  in  my  mind  as  to  the  proper  remedy  to  rectify  this- 
inequality  as  against  Hudson  county,  in  comparison  with  tlie  otlier  counties, 
but  I  think  if  the  railroad  property  should  be  assessed  under  the  act  of  1884 
and  by  the  Board  of  Assessors,  and  the  whole  amount  of  tax  derived  there- 
from were  gathered  into  a  bulk  and  then  each  county  should  contribute 
toward  the  expenses  of  the  government  in  proportion  to  the  sum  total  of  the 
entire  valuations  of  each  county,  and  the  remainder  should  then  be  distributed 
to  the  counties  in  proportion  to  the  property  therein  located,  it  would  be  an  • 
improvement 

"  I  am  thoroughly  convinced  that  the  principle  of  assessment  involved  in  the 
act  of  1884  by  the  State  Board  of  Assessors  for  the  purpose  of  assessing  rail- 
road property  as  distinct  from  the  local  Assessors  for  that  purpose,  is  a 
sound  one. 

"Hoping  that  these  observations  answer  your  questions, 
"  I  remain  yours,  &c., 

"CHAS.  C.  BLACK." 

81  (,481) 


TOPICAL    INDEX. 


PAGE. 

•CHAPTER  I.— BRIEF  PRELIMINARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  HIS- 
TORY OF  THE  MONOPOLY  CHARTERS 7 

•CHAPTER  II.— EFFORTS  TO  ESTABLISH  COMPETING  LINES 

WITH   THE  CAMDEN   AND  AMBOY   RAILROAD 19 

New  Jersey  Central's  First  Moves , 19 

New  Jersey  Southern  Railroad's  Original  Scheme 20 

National  Line's  Efforts  to  Connect  Philadelphia  and  New  York..  21 
Effect  of  Lease  of  New  Jersey  Lines  to  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road    23 

■CHAPTER  IIL— THE  REPUBLICAN  GERRYMANDER  OF  1870, 
AND  JOEL  PARKER'S  ELECTION  TO  THE  GOVERNOR- 
SHIP OVER  WALSH 24 

Democratic  Redistricting  Defeated 25 

Era  of  Disastrous  Republican  Rule 27 

The  "Horseshoe"  Assembly  District 28 

Frelinghuysen  made  LTnited  States  Senator 28 

Republicans  Nominate  Walsh  for  Governor 29 

Personnel  of  the  Old  State  House  Autocracy 30 

Judge  Bedle  and  Leon  Abbett  suggested  for  Governor 34 

Joel  Parker's  Popularity 36 

Democratic  State  Convention,  1871 37 

Joel  Parker  pleads  his  Case  before  a  Jury  of  the  People 38 

Governor's  Salary  Increased  from  $3,000  to  $5,000  a  year 41 

•CHAPTER  IV.— BENJAMIN  F.  LEE  APPOINTED  CLERK  OF 

THE  SUPREME   COURT 43 

Sketch  of  Benjamin  F.Lee 43 

Mr.  Lee  and  John  L.  Sharp  44 

J.  Daggett  Hunt's  Disappointment 46 

CHAPTER  v.— THE  PASSAGE  OF  THE  GENERAL  RAIL- 
ROAD LAW   IN   1873 48 

Legislative  Organization,  1872 48 

Philadelphia  and  New  York  Schemes 49 

Assemblyman  Canfield's  General  Railroad  Act 51 

New  York  and  Philadelphia  Renews  its  Application  for  Legis- 
lation   52 

The  Lobby  the  Railroad  Rivalries  called  to  Trenton 52 

(483) 


484  TOPICAL   INDEX. 


PAGE. 

Origin  of  the  Clamor  for  a  General  Railroad  Law 53^ 

The  Stanhope  Fraud 55 

Excitements  that  Followed  Vice  Chancellor  Dodd's  Decision 57 

Assembly  (1873)  Passes  the  Philadelphia  and  New  York  Eail- 

road  Bill 59 

Senate  Shields  Itself  Behind  a  Pennsylvania  Railroad   Decoy 

Bill 59 

Philadelphia  and  New  York  Bill  Defeated  in  the  Senate 61 

How  the   Senators  Voted 62 

Canfield's  General  Railroad  Act  Passes  the  Assembly 62: 

Passed  by  the  Senate  and  Signed  by  Governor  Parker 63 

The  Pennington  Railroad  Riots 64 

Trouble  at  the  Delaware  River 64 

CHAPTER  VI.— THE  STATE  ESTABLISHES  HER  TITLE  TO 
RIPARIAN  LANDS  AND  DEVOTES   THE   MONEY   TO   A 

STATE  SCHOOL  FUND 66 

Early  Contentions  Concerning  Under-water  Rights 66 

The  Wharf  Act 68 

Private  and  Railroad  Invasion  of  Hudson  County  Shore  Fronts..  68 

American  Dock  and  Improvement  Company  asks  Legislation 69 

A  Bid  of  $1,000,000 70- 

State  Riparian  Board's  Hazy  Existence 72: 

The  Sugar-house  Controversy,  Jersey  City 73 

Harsimus  Cove  Grant 74 

Jersey  City  offers  $1,000,000  for  the  Property 75- 

Senator  Little  Stops  an  Act 75 

State  lays  Definite  Claim  to  the  Water  Front 76 

Fortifies  its  Title  with  a  Court  Decision 77 

Moneys  Devoted  to  the  State  Schools 78 

State  School  Tax — How  Levied  and  Distributed 79 

Speaker  Niles's  Work 79 

State  School  Superintendent  Poland  makes  a  Commotion  and  a 

Reform 80 

Attempts  to  take  the  School  Fund  for  General  State  Purposes...  82 

State  School  Libraries 85 

CHAPTER  VII.— DEMAND  FOR  GENERAL  LAWS  LEADS  TO 
THE  APPOINTMENT  OF  A  CONSTITUTIONAL  COMMIS- 
SION    86 

Putting   Jersey  City  under  the   Heel   of   a   Legislative  Com- 
mission    86 

Popular  Excitements  Due   to  that  Invasion  of   the   Right   of 

Home  Rule 89 

City  Treasurer  Hamilton  Flees  Jersey  City  with  $100,000  of  her 

Money,  and  is  Protected  by  Mexican  Bandits 91 


TOPICAL  INDEX.  485 


PAGE. 

CHAPTER  VIII.— THE  COMMISSION   THAT  AMENDED  THE 

STATE  CONSTITUTION 96 

Governor's  Veto  Power  Considered 98 

School  Tax  Considered 98 

Railroad  Monopolies  Attacked 99 

Legislature  of  1874  acts  on  the  Amendments 99 

CHAPTER  IX.— JOSEPH  D.  BEDLE  ELECTED  GOVERNOR 
OVER  GEORGE  A.  HALSEY ;  AND  DAWN  OF  THE  MOVE- 
MENT FOR  THE  DISPLACEMENT  OF  THE  STATE  HOUSE 

AUTOCRACY 102 

George  A.  Halsey's  Popularity 102 

Judge  Bedle  Stands  for  the  Principle  of  Home  Rule 104 

Bedle's  Majority 105 

Legislature  of  1875 — Organization 106 

Assembly  Clerk  Carpenter's  Removal 107 

Leon  Abbett  and  the  State  House  Autocrats 109 

Skirmish  Between  the  Two  Factions  over  Randolph's  Election  to 
the  United  States  Senate 109 

CHAPTER  X.— THE  CATHOLIC  PROTECTORY  BILL  EXCITE- 
MENT ENDS  IN  THE  ACCEPTANCE  OF  THE  CONSTI- 
TUTIONAL AMENDMENTS  PROVIDING  FOR  GENERAL 
LAWS  AND  FORBIDDING  SECTARIAN  APPROPRIATIONS,  111 

Catholic  Protectory  Bill  Introduced 112 

Assemblyman  Kirk's  Hot  Attack 114 

Assembly  Vote  on  the  Bill 114 

Act  Emasculated  in  the  Senate 115 

Vote  in  Senate  on  it 115 

Abbett's  Liberty  of  Conscience  Act 115 

Church  Attempts  to  Defeat  the  Constitutional  Amendments 116 

Unsuccessful  Efforts  to  Adjust  Legislation  to  the  New  System....  118 
Rev.  Father  Corrigan's  Scheme  to  Deliver  the  Parochial  Schools 
to  the  State , 118 

CHAPTER  XL— ABBETT  AND  McPHERSON  TRIUMPH  OVER 
THE  STATE  HOUSE  AUTOCRATS  AND  Mr.  McPHERSON 

GOES  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES  SENATE 123 

Sketch  of  Senator  McPhersou 126 

Possible  Bearing  of  the  Tilden-Hayes  Presidential  Controversy 

on  the  Senatorship  Struggle , 127 

Mr.  Halsey  and  Gottfried  Krueger 129 

Legislative  Organization,  1877 130 

Caucus  Disloyalty  Feared 132 

Robeson  put  Forward  by  the  Republicans 133 

All  Eyes  on  Hannon 134 


486  TOPICAL  INDEX. 


PAGE. 

Exciting  Joint  Meeting 13& 

State  Comptrollership  Dickers 136 

Krueger  and  Morrow 137 

District  Court  Act 138^ 

Governor  Bedle  in  the  Railroad  Riots 141 

CHAPTER  XII.— THE  SPECTACULAR  CONVENTION  WHICH 
NOMINATED      GENERAL      McCLELLAN      OVER     LEON 

ABBETT  FOR  GOVERNOR 144 

Mrs.  Abbett's  Political  Work 145 

Orestes  Cleveland  Opposes  Abbett 146 

Details  of  the  Democratic  State  Convention,  1877 148 

Hurrahing  McClellan  Through 149 

William  A.  Newell  Named  for  Governor  by  the  Republicans....  153^ 
Newell's  Maladroit  Campaign 154 

CHAPTER  XIII— EVENTS  OF  GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  AD- 
MINISTRATION    156 

Governor  McClellan's  Inauguration 156 

Unsatisfactory  Legislation,  1878 156 

Prison  Keeper  Mott's  Trial 157 

Legislature,  1879 158 

Bankruptcy  of  Elizabeth 159 

Bankruptcy  of  Rahway 161. 

CHAPTER  XIV.— MR.  ABBETT  AND  HIS  STATE  HOUSE  RI- 
VALS JOIN  HANDS  TO  DEFEAT  ORESTES  CLEVE- 
LAND AS  A  CANDIDATE   FOR  GOVERNOR,  AND  NAME 

GEORGE  C.  LUDLOW 163 

Republicans  Propose  to  Name  Frederic  A.  Potts  fur  Governor...  163- 

Railroad  Combinations  in  his  Interest 164 

Abbett  Selected  for  Chairman 169 

Details  of  the  Democratic  State  Convention,  1880 171 

Abbett  thrice  Refuses  the  Nomination 173- 

Memorable  Republican  Campaign 176 

Secretary  Kelsey's  Fateful  Visit  to  Mr.  Cassatt 177 

Fraud  Charged  by  the  Republicans 179- 

CHAPTER  XV.-GENERAL  SEWELL'S  ELECTION  TO  THE 
UNITED  STATES  SENATE  IS  FOLLOWED  BY  AN  ANTI- 
MONOPOLY  AGITATION 180 

Legislative  Organization,  1881 180 

Republican  Senatorial  Caucus 181 

Sketch  of  General  Sewell 182' 

Assemblyman  Farrier's  Figures  Concerning   Railroad   Exemp- 
tions   184 

Charles  L.  Corbin's  Strong  Presentation  on  the  Same  Subject 185 


TOPICAL   INDEX.  487 


PAGK- 

CHAPTER  XVI.— THE  FIRST  ANTI-MONOPOLY  STRUGGLE 
IN    THE    STATE    BRINGS    THOMAS   V.   GATOR   TO  THE 

FRONT 188^ 

Sketch  of  Mr.  Cator 18& 

Railroads  Nominate  Asa  W.  Dickinson 189- 

"Cul"  Barcalow's  Disastrous  Letter 191 

CHAPTER  XVII.— RAILROAD  ATTEMPTS  TO  PASS  A  WATER- 
FRONT SEIZURE  BILL  END  IN  EXCITING  CHARGES  OF 

BRIBERY 19? 

The  Famous  Senate  Bill  111 19^ 

Mr.  Cator  Explains  his  Vote  for  it 194 

Features  of  the  Water-Front  Bill 194 

Governor  Ludlow's  Sturdy  Refusal  to  Sign  the  Act 196 

Shiun  Exhibits  Five  $100  Bills  and  makes  a  Scene 19T 

Time  Called  on  the  Act 199- 

CHAPTER  XVIIL— JOHN  R.  McPHERSON  ELECTED  FOR  THE 

SECOND  TIME  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES  SENATE 201 

Political  Surprises  of  1882 201 

Legislative  Organization,  1883...  202-' 

Combine  to  Defeat  McPherson  203- 

Republicans  name  Garret  A.  Hobart  for  United  States  Senator..  203 

Sketch  of  Mr.  Hobart 203 

Republican  Members  ofler  McPherson  Aid 207. 

Cator  Attacks  McPherson  in  Joint  Meeting 207' 

Assembly  Vote  on  Cator's  Equal  Taxation  Bill 208  ~ 

Senator  Griggs's  Equal  Taxation  Bill 209  - 

CHAPTER  XIX.- GOVERNOR  ABBETT'S  NOMINATION,  AND 

WONDERFUL  CAMPAIGN  FOR  THE  GOVERNORSHIP 210 

Henry  S.  Little  makes  Charges  against  him 211 

Democratic  State  Convention,  1884 213 

John  Hill  Discussed  by  the  Republicans 214 

Judge  Dixon  Chosen  by  Republican  Chiefs  at  a  Dinner 214 

Republican  State  Convention,  1884 21& 

Dixon  Refuses  to  Resign  his  Judgeship 216 

Governor  Bedle  Indorses  Abbett 217 

Editor  Reick's  Story  of  Mr.  Abbett's  Tireless  Campaign 21S- 

Sketch  of  Leon  Abbett 223 

Scenes  at  his  Inauguration  and  Reception 224 

Mr.  Abbett  promises  to  make  the  Railroads  pay  their  Taxes 224 

CHAPTER  XX.— THE  PASSAGE  OF  THE  ACT  FOR  THE  TAX- 
ATION OF  RAILROAD  PROPERTY 226- 

Legislature  1884— Organization 227" 

■  Cator  Drops  Out 227  - 


488  TOPICAL   INDEX. 


Notable  Faces  in  the  Legislature 227 

Joint  Committee  on  Railroad  Taxation 229 

Equal-Taxation  Bills  Presented 231 

Governor  Abbett  Prepares  a  Tax  Bill 231 

Houses  Deadlocked  on  the  Question 232 

Features  of  Joint  Committee's  Tax  Bill 233 

Governor's  Bill  Passes  the  Assembly 234 

Senator  Griggs's  Joint  Committee  Bill  Passes  the  Senate 235 

Governor  Abbett's  Threat 236 

State  Board  of  Assessors  Affirmed 237 

Allan  L.  McDermott  a  Bone  of  Contention 237 

Charles  L.  Corbin's  Circular  about  two  Letters 238 

Railroad  Tax  Bill  in  the  Courts 241 

Abbett's  Pursuit  of  the  Delinquent  Delaware,  Lackawanna  and 

Western  Railroad 243 

Governor  Abbett  Charges  the  Company  with  Having  Cheated 

the  State 246 

Movement  to  Confiscate  the  Company's  Property 247 

William  H.  Corbin's  Speech 247 

The  Company  Buys  its  Peace  with  the  State 249 

And  Pays  up  Arrearages,  too 250 

Cator  Leaves  New  Jersey 250 

CHAPTER  XXL— THE  MOVEMENT  FOR  THE  REMOVAL  OF 
THE  STATE  CAPITAL  TO  NEWARK  AND  THE  DEMO- 
CRATIC STATE  CONVENTION  OF  1886 252 

Schenck  made  President  of  the  Senate 252 

State  Capitol  Burned 253 

Attempt  to  make  Newark  the  State  Capital 254 

Campaign  of  1886 255 

Mr.  Kelsey  and  Mr.  Little  make  their  Last  Alliance 257 

The  Democratic  State  Convention,  1886 259 

Republican  State  Convention,  1886 263 

CHAPTER  XXII.— DEFEAT  OF  GOVERNOR  ABBETT'S  FIRST 
ATTEMPT  TO  REACH  THE  UNITED  STATES  SENATOR- 
SHIP  IN  1886 264 

Labor  Assemblymen  hold  the  Balance  of  Power 264 

Disputes  Concerning  a  Mercer  Seat  Outlined 265 

Turley-IIaines'  Assembly  Seat  Contest 266 

Rumors  of  a  Bolt  against  Abbett 267 

Rumors  of  a  Bolt  against  Sewell 267 

Friction  in  the  Democratic  Caucus  over  the  Speakership 268 

Disorderly  Scenes  at  the  Assembly  Organization. 269 

Delay  in  Organizing  the  Senate 270 

Tlie  Joint  Meetings 272 


TOPICAL  INDEX.  489 


PAGE. 

Hezekiah  Smith's  Picturesque  Career 276 

Mr.  Phelps  Strives  for  the  Senatorship 279 

How  Blodgett  was  Elected 281 

CHAPTER  XXin.  — THE  HIGH  LICENSE-LOCAL  OPTION 
BILL— ITS  OPERATIONS  AND  ITS  SUBSEQUENT  MODI- 
FICATIONS   284 

Angling  for  the  Prohibition  Vote 284 

Features  of  the  High  License  Act 285 

Vote  on  the  Act  in  the  Assembly 286 

Vote  in  the  Senate 287 

Liquor  Men  Excited 288 

High  License  Popular 289 

Counties  Vote  Against  Saloons 289 

Liquor  Men  help  Democrats  to  Carry  the  Legislature 290 

Town  Option  Enacted  in  Place  of  County  Option 292 

CHAPTER  XXIV.-SENATOR  McPHERSON'S  THIRD  ELEC- 
TION TO  THE  UNITED  STATES  SENATE 294 

A  Little  Romance  about  an  Assemblyman 294 

Organization  of  the  Legislature  of  1889 300 

Senator  Abbett  a  Candidate 300 

Prepares  a  Surprise  for  Mr.  McPherson 301 

Vote  in  Caucus 302 

CHAPTER  XXV.-ORIGIN  OF  THE  BALLOT-BOX  STUFFING 
RING    AND    THE    SEIZURE   OF    JERSEY    CITY   UNDER 

THE  COVER  OF  A  NEW  CHARTER 304 

Jersey   City's   'Big   Four" — McLaughlin,  Davis,  Feeney  and 

O'Neill 305 

Davis  Elects  Himself  Sheriff  and  Controls  Grand  Juries 307 

Jersey  City's  Single-Headed  Governor 310 

Newark  makes  Objection 313 

Senator  Peter  D.  Smith  Huated  out  of  the  Woods  to  Vote 314 

Cleveland  Fills  the  Offices 317 

"Paddy"  O'Neill  joins  the  Y.  M.  C.  A 319 

CHAPTER  XXVL— ABBETT  RE-ELECTED  TO  THE  GOVER- 
NORSHIP OVER  GENERAL  GRUBB 320 

Reaching  out  for  the  Senatorship  again 320 

Democratic  State  Convention,  1889 321 

Local  Option  an  Issue  in  the  Republican  State  Convention 322 

CHAPTER  XXVIL— THE  STUHR-McDONALD  CONTEST  FOR 
A  SEAT  IN  THE  SENATE,  AND  GARDNER'S  EXPOSURE 

OF  THE  BALLOT-BOX  STUFFERS 325 

An  Incident  of  the  Inauguration 325 

Investigation  Begun  329 


490  TOPICAL  INDEX. 


PAGE, 

The  Disclosures  of  Conspiracy SSO 

McDonald  Unseated 33i 

Stuhr  Unseated 333- 

CHAPTER   XXVIII.-THE   INDICTMENT,  CONVICTION    AND 

IMPRISONMENT  OF  THE  BALLOT-BOX  STUFFERS 335 

Scenes  in  the  Grand   Jury  Room  when  the  Indictments  were 

Pending 335 

The  Indictments  Reach  the  Court 339 

Prosecutor  Wintield's  Labors 340 

"Tom"  Trotter's  Woman 341 

Judge  Lippincott  Presides  at  the  Trial 343^ 

Technical  Points  in  the  Cases 344- 

Appeals  for  Time 347 

Fruitless  Efforts  to  Remove  the  Convictions  to  the  United  States 

Courts 349 

Sheriff  Davis  Shields  Convicts. 351 

And  is  Indicted 352 

Court  of  Pardons  Appealed  to 352" 

Legislative  Movement  for  Ballot  Reform 353 

CHAPTER  XXIX  —GOVERNOR  ABBETT  HELPS  THE  GANGS 

TO  SEIZE  THE  STATE  AND  THE  MUNICIPALITIES 355 

Salary  Increased  to  $10,000 355 

Local  Lieutenants 356' 

Seizing  State  Functions 360' 

The  State  Police  Act 360- 

State  and  County  Excise  Boards 362 

Arranging  a  Democratic  Gerrymander 363^ 

Haynes's  last  Election  to  the  Mayoralty  of  Newark.... 364* 

Democratic  Charters  for  Paterson,  Trenton  and  Camden 366 

CHAPTER   XXX— THE    FACTS  ABOUT  THE  RE- ORGANIZA- 
TION OF  THE  NATIONAL  GUARD 369 

Sketch  of  Major-General  Plume 370 

Weakness  of  the  First  Brigade 373- 

Rivalries  for  Brigadier-General 380 

Court  of  Inquiry 381 

CHAPTER    XXXI.— DEFEAT    OF    FIRST    RACE-TRACK   BILL 

AND  FORMATION?  OF   ANTI-RACE-TRACK  LEAGUE 383 

The  Gloucester  City  and  Camden  Race-Tracks 384 

Assemblyman  Parker's  Bill 386 

Anti- Race-Track  League  Formed 38T 

Senator  Roe  Defeated 388- 


TOPICAL   INDEX.  491 


I'AGE. 

CHAPTER    XXXII.-THE   STORY   OF    THE   COAL    COMBINE 

BILL  AND  OF  ITS  DEFEAT 389- 

The  Roads  that  were  in  it 389 

Legislative  Investigation 392" 

Approving  Bill  Pressed  through  the  House 392 

Assembly  Vote 394 

Senate  Vote 395 

Governor  Abbett  Refuses  to  Sign 395 

Miles  Ross  Angry 397 

Chancellor's  Decision  Dissolving  the  Combine 400- 

CHAPTER  XXXIII— THE  MOVEMENT  FOR  A  HILL  DELE- 
GATION TO  THE  NATIONAL  DEMOCRATIC  CON- 
VENTION   DEFEATED    BY    PRESIDENT    CLEVELAND'S 

FRIENDS 407 

Abbett  Against  Cleveland 407" 

Hill's  Visit  to  New  Jersey 408 

Delegation  Instructed  to  Vote  for  Cleveland 412 

Mr.  Abbett  Nominates  Grover  Cleveland 413- 

CHAPTER  XXXIV.-E  F.  C.  YOUNG  REACHES  OUT  FOR 
THE     GOVERNORSHIP     AND    GEORGE    T.    WERTS    IS 

NOMINATED 415 

Getting  Werts  Out  of  the  Way 416 

Sketch  of  Mr.  Young 417 

Counter  Movement  for  Judge  Werts 421 

Senator  McPherson  Quarantined 423 

Details  of  the  Democratic  Convention 423- 

Sketch  of  Governor  Werts 426 

Republican  State  Convention 426 

Sketch  of  John  Kean 427 

President  Cleveland's  Visit  to  Jersey  City 430 

Chairman  McDermott  makes  a  Scare  about  Ballots 432 

CHAPTER  XXXV.— GOVERNOR  ABBETT  S  FRIENDS  ABAN- 
DON HIM  AND  JAMES  SMITH,  Jr.,  IS  ELECTED  TO  THE 

UNITED  STATES  SENATE 434 

A  Season  of  Doubt 435 

Hudson  County  Refuses  to  Caucus 435 

Governor  Abbett  Withdrawn 436 

Sketch  of  James  Smith,  Jr 437 

Death  of  Governor  Abbett 438 

Governor  Bedle's  Death 439 

CHAPTER  XXXVL— THE  PASSAGE  OF  THE  RACE-TRACK 
BILL  AND  THE  PUBLIC  EXCITEMENTS  THAT  FOL- 
LOWED   440 

Some  Faces  in  the  Assembly 440 

Speaker  Fiynn 441 


492  TOPICAL  INDEX. 


PAGE. 

Legislative  Extravagances 442 

Guttenberg  and  Gloucester  Tracks  Defy  the  Law 443 

Fruitless  Attacks  on  Guttenberg 444 

The  Kace-Track  Bills  Introduced 444 

A  Hearing  Demanded 445 

Thompson  Attacks  Lane 445 

The  Assembly  Vote  Against  Hearing 445 

Flynn's  Sneer  and  Lane's  Retort 446 

Vote  on  Bills,  Assembly 446 

Hoffman-Riddle  Senate  Contest 446 

Senate  Vote  on  Bills.... 448 

Governor  Werts's  Vetoes 448 

Overriding  the  Vetoes 448 

Popular  Uprising 449 

The  People  Take  Possession  of  the  Assembly  Chamber 449 

Rev.  Dr.  Kempshall  at  Flynn's  Desk 451 

Lanning's  Conversion 451 

The  Citizens  Heard 452 

The  Jockeys'  Quarrel 453 

CHAPTER  XXXVII.— THE  CAPTURE  OF  THE  STATE  BY 
THE  REPUBLICANS,  AND  THE  STORY  OF  THE  HOLD- 
OVER SENATORS 454 

Licensing  the  Race-Tracks 454 

Cam])aign  on  State  Issues 455 

Plots  to  Deadlock  the  Legislature 456 

Scheming  Against  Bradley 458 

Threats  Against  Ward  and  Rogers 459 

A  Republican  Conference 461 

Excitements  of  the  Night  Before  Organization 462 

Nathan  Bars  the  Senate  Doors 463 

The  Minority  Organize 462 

The  New  Senators  Demand  Admission 464 

Their  Credentials  Presented 465 

The  Republican  Senators  Withdraw  and  Organize  Separately....  467 

Governor  Recognizes  the  "Hold-overs" 468 

Assembly  Recognizes  the  Republican  Senate 469 

Taking  the  Contest  into  Court 471 

The  Court  Seats  the  Republican  Senators 473 

Tlie  Session's  Legislation 474 


PAGE   REFERENCES  TO    NAMES. 


A. 

Abbett,  Leon,  22,  23,  26,  34,  82,  88,  115,  119, 
124,  130,  135,  141,  144,  146,  157,  160,  162, 
166,  203,  210,  216,  219,  226,  244,  246,  252, 
255,  264,  272,  274,  288,  292,  300,  301,  305, 
320,  325,  353,  355,  374,  389,  407,  415,  429, 
434,  440,  473. 

Abbett,  Leon,  Jr.,  363. 

Abbett,  Miss,  224. 

Abbett,  William  F.,  219,  363. 

Abeel,  G.  N.,  52. 

Abemethy,  H.  H.,  381. 

Ackerman,  Peter,  271,  281. 

Acton,  Walter  W.,  171. 

Adams,  Israel  S.,  215. 

Adrain,  Robert,  302,  329,  359,  368,  394,  437, 
448,  464,  466,  472. 

Albright,  Andrew,  168,  201. 

Alexander,  CoL  William  C,  37. 

Allers,  Henry,  335. 

Allison,  William,  55. 

Anderson  (Assemblyman),  59, 114. 

Anderson,  David,  88. 

Anderson,  Edward  J.,  83, 138,  461. 

Apgar,  Ellis  A.,  80. 

Apgar,  W.  Holt,  425. 

Applegate,  John  S.,  196,  209. 

Arbuckle  (Assemblyman),  208. 

Armitage,  John  L.,  208,  229,  445,  446. 

Armstrong,  E  Ambler,  229,  247,  253. 

Armstrong,  Thomas  D.,  38. 

Am  wine,  John  C,  268. 

Atherton  (Professor),  162,  213. 

Atkinson,  Joseph,  269,  274. 

Aurand,  Rev.  C.  M.,  388. 

B. 

Baake  (Assemblyman),  446. 
Babeock,  John  F.,  97,  106. 
Bacot,  Robert  C,  72. 
Bailey,  Caleb  T.,  387. 
Baird  (Speaker),  270,  274. 
Baker,  Philip  P.,  198,  292. 
Balbach,  Edward,  253. 
■  Bale,  Andrew  J.,  286,  302. 
Ballard,  Rev.  A.  E.,  287,  293. 


Ballantine,  Robert  H.,  253. 

Bamford  (Assemblyman),  209. 

Banghart,  Johnson,  52.  61. 

Barcalow,  Culver,  52, 191,  199. 

Barker,  George  W.,  141. 

Barker  (Senator),  391,  448. 

Barnard,  L.  R.,  370. 

Barnes  (Assemblyman),  59. 

Barrett,  Michael  T.,  121,  271,  395,  412,  437, 

447,  448. 
Barrett,  Timothy,  446. 
Barton  (Assemblyman),  50. 
Baxter  (Assemblyman),  394,  446. 
Beasley,  Chauncy  H.,  412. 
Beasley,  Mercer,  242,  265,  349,  473. 
Beatty,  Daniel,  196. 
Beckwith,  James,  259,  273. 
Bedle,  Joseph  D.,  34,  94, 104, 110,  111,  117, 

130,  143,  145,  152,  169,  195,  217,  230,  247, 

272,  274,  432,  440. 
Bedle,  Joseph  D.,  Jr.,  424. 
Beekman,  John  W.,  393,  394,  441,  445,  446. 
Beesley  (Senator) ,  62,  80. 
Belden,  John  C,  48,  90. 
Bell  (Assemblyman),  195. 
Bentley,  Peter,  68. 

Bergen,  James  J.,  137,  156,  359,  394,  424,  452. 
Berry  (Assemblyman),  416. 
Besson,  John  C,  245. 
Berthoud,  A.  P.,  51. 
Bettle,  Edward,  29,  50,  90,  238,  461. 
Bevans  (Assemblyman),  22. 
Bigelow,  Moses,  302. 
Bird,  John  T.,  105,  119,  148,  172,  451. 
Black,  Charles  C,  343,480. 
Blackwell,  Jonathan,  115. 
Blake,  John  L.,  201,  254,  276. 
Blancke  (Assemblyman),  114. 
Blodgett,  Rufus,  256,  278,  321. 
Bloomer  (Assemblyman),  286. 
Bogart,  John  W.,  114,  302. 
Bolton  (Assemblyman),  208. 
Bonsall  (Assemblyman),  88. 
Bosenbury  (Senator),  196. 
Bowes,  J.  J.,  388. 
Bowler,  George  H.,335. 
Bradley,  James  A.,  456,  458,  462, 466.. 

1493) 


494 


PAGE  EEFERENCES  TO  NAMES. 


Bradley,  Joseph  P.,  12S. 

Braker,  Beujamin,  255. 

:Brett,  Rev.  Coruelius,  293. 

Brigham,  Lewis  A.,  136,  276. 

Brinkerhoff,  William,  98,  227,  229,  230,  247. 

Broadhead, ,  221. 

Brown  (Assemblyman),  286. 
Brown,  John  T.,  387. 
Browning,  Abraham,  52,  72. 
Bruen,  Rev.  J.  D.,  450. 
Bryant  (Assemblyman),  208. 
Burroughs  (Assemblyman),  136. 
Buckley,  Benjamin,  98. 
Budd  (Assemblyman),  208. 
Burgess,  Rush,  229. 
Burns  (Assemblyman),  394. 
Burr,  Rev.  E.  W.,  388. 
Burton  (Assemblyman),  416. 
Busch,  Herman  D.,  25. 
Butcher  (Senator),  395,  448. 
Byrne,  Joseph  M  ,  410,  445,  4.'>3. 

C. 

Cabine,  Robert  B.,  27. 

Cadwallader,  A.  C,  51. 

Caminade,  John,  255. 

Campbell  (Assemblyman),  209. 

Campbell,  Edward  A.,  370. 

Campbell,  William  B  ,  361. 

Canfield,  Augustus,  51. 

Canfield,  Edward,  55. 

Oarey  (Assemblyman),  108,  114. 

Carleton,  A.  B.,  160. 

Carmichael,  I.  W.,  450. 

Carpenter,  John,  Jr.,  59, 106, 114. 

Carr,  John  C,  384. 

Carroll,  J.,  394. 

Carroll,  Dr.  Henry  K  ,  287. 

Carroll  (of  Passaic),  264. 

Carroll,  T.  J.,  394,  440,  445,  453. 

Carrollton  (Assemblyman),  111. 

Carse  (General),  48,  59. 

Carscallen,  John  D.,  100,  HI. 

Carson  (Constable),  91. 

Carter,  Benjamin  F.,  97, 105,  119. 

Carter,  William  H.,  287. 

Cassatt,  A.  J.,  177. 

Cassedy,  George  W.,  242. 

Cator,  Thomas  V.,  188,  193,  197,  201,  208, 

227,  233.  247,  250. 
Cattell,  Alexander  G.,  27,  238,  263,  271. 
Cavanagh,  John,  335,  394. 
Cavileer  (Assemblyman),  136. 
Cecil,  John  R.,  51. 
Chamberlain  (Assemblyman),  272,  415. 

Chambly, ,  266. 

Champney,  Benjamin,  91. 
Champney,  Frank,  134. 


Chapman,  E.  O.,  207,  208,  228, 

Chase,  Daniel  C,  267,  272,  274. 

Chattle,  Thomas  G.,  202,  209,  229,  272,  274. 

Chew,  Sinnickson,  50. 

Christie  (Assemblyman),  286. 

Clark,  A.  Bailey,  27. 

Clark,  Alvah  A.,  169,  276. 

Clark,  Amos,  52,  164. 

Clark  (Assemblyman),  22. 

Clark,  Hiram  C,  450. 

Clark,  James  C,  193,  203,  208. 

Clark,  William,  253. 

Clarke  (Assemblyman),  440, 445. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  407. 

Cleveland,  James  M.,  388. 

Cleveland,  Jeremiah  B.,  317. 

Cleveland,  Orestes,  34,  146,  166,  259,  310, 

318,  364. 
Cobb  (Senator),  74,  226. 
Cochran,  Lewis,  213 
Colby,  Gardner  R.,  154,  254,  268. 
Cole,  Eugene  C,  367,  393. 
Cole,  Frank  O.,  208,  228,  233. 
Coleman,  George  K.,  464. 
Coudit,  Israel,  11. 
Condon,  Patrick  J.,  335. 
Congar,  Horace  N.,  119. 
Conkling  (Assemblyman),  286. 
Connelly,  James  F.,  261,  421,  435. 
Conover  (Assemblyman),  90, 114. 
Conover,  W.  V.,  114. 
Conroy  (Assemblyman),  208,  219. 
Coogan  (Assemblyman),  88. 
Cooley  (Assemblyman),  59. 
Coombs  (Assemblyman),  209. 
Cooper  (Assemblyman),  136. 
Corbin,  Charles  L.,  185,  201,  230,  235. 
Corbin  (Colonel),  93. 
Corbin,  William  H.,  244,  247,  254,  267,  272, 

274,  329, 452. 
Corey  (Assemblyman),  136. 
Cornelison,  John  M.,  68. 
Cornish,  Johnston,  395,  396,  448. 
Cornish,  Joseph,  61,  76, 115. 
Corrigan  (Father),  119. 
Cotter,  William  A.,  450. 
Coult,  Joseph,  153,  461,  472. 
Cowart,  Rev.  S.  C,  388. 
Coyle,  Michael,  121,  394,  440,  445. 
Cramer  (Assemblyman),  445,  446, 
Cranmer,  George  T.,  209,  287,  395. 
Craven,  John  V.,  450. 

Creveling, ,  116. 

Cronan,  Cornelius  J.,  308. 
Cronk  (Assemblyman),  208,  209. 
Crowell,  Joseph  T.,  72. 
Crusius,  Nicholas  V.,  384. 
Culver,  Delos  E.,  27,  52. 


PAGE  REFERENCES  TO  NAMES. 


495 


Culver,  Isaac  B.,  27,  52. 

€ummings,  Benjamin,  11. 

Cunningham  (Assemblyman),  136. 

Curtin,  Alexander  G.,  40. 

Cutler,  Augustus  W.,  48,  61,  70,  97,  173,  213, 

226,  261,  425. 
Cutler,  Ephraim,  286,  302. 
Cutler,  Willard  W.,  450. 

D. 

Daly  (Assemblyman),  394,  441,  445. 

Daly,  William  D.,  121,  261,  343,  425,  448,  453, 

459. 
Datz,  Emil  E.,  161. 
Davis,  Robert,  295,  302,  305,  319,  328,  335, 

356,  361,  429. 
Davidson  (Assemblyman),  394. 
Dayton,  James  B  ,  72. 
Dayton  (Senator),  115. 
Deacon  (Senator),  196. 
De  Forest,  Robert  W  ,  242,  399. 
Dempisey  (Assemblyman),  394. 
Dennis,  A.  L  ,  22. 
De  Ronde,  Abram,  302. 
Dickinson,  Asa  W.,  189. 
Dickinson,  Isaac  B.,  38. 
Dickinson,  Philemon,  97. 
Diekinson,  Samuel  D.,  229,  276,  285,  286, 

314. 
Dillon,  John  F.,  249. 
Dillon,  Sidney,  27. 
Dittmar  (Assemblyman),  410,  445. 
Diver  (Assemblyman),  445,  446. 
Diverty  J.  S.,  288. 
Dixon,  Jonathan,  87,  215,  223. 
Dixon,  Rev.  John,  388,  451. 
Dodd,  Amzi,  55. 
Dodd,  David,  114, 117,  152,  261. 
Denohue  (of  Passaic),  264. 
Donnelly,  Peter  T.,  302,  318. 
Donnelly,  Richard  A.,  425. 
Doron  (Assemblyman),  271. 
Dorrance,  George,  52. 
Doughty  (Senator),  196. 
Doyle  (Assemblyman),  112, 114, 117. 
Drake  (Assemblyman),  136. 
Drake  (Senator),  448. 
Drohan,  Martin  M.,  135. 
Dudley,  Thomas  H.,  181. 
Duncan  (General),  215,  263. 
Dupuy  (Assemblyman),  394,  445. 
Dusenberry  (Assemblyman),  286. 
Dusenbury,  James  B.,  450. 
Dwyer,  John,  88. 
Dye,  Anthony,  11. 

E. 
Edelstein,  John,  288. 
Edge,  Benjamin,  335,  336. 


Edmunds  (Assemblymau),  114. 

Edsall  (Senator),  62. 

Edwards,  William  D.,  274,  287,  302,  312, 

317,  424. 
Emery,  John  R  ,  399. 
Emley,  Eugene,  286. 
Erlenkotter  (Lieut.-Col  ).  381. 
Ernst  (.\ssemblyman),  394. 
Erwin  (Assemblyman),  356. 
Everitt.  Mo.ses  K.,  302. 
Everitt,  Rev.  B.  S.,  287. 


Fagan,  Lawrence,  302,  335. 

Farrell,  Edward  P.,  286,  302. 

Farrier,  George  H.,  41,  59, 88,  201,  227. 

Fayerweather,  W.  0.,  388. 

Feeney,  John  P.,  270,  286,  302,  305,  317,  319, 

361. 
Felter,  Garret,  335. 
Ferrell,  Thomas  M.,  197,  201. 
Ferry,  George  J.,  97,  254,  288. 
Fiedler,  Wm.  H.  F.,  198,  201. 
Fielder,  James  F.,  89. 
Fish,  Frederick  S  ,  247,  253,  271,  272. 
Fisher,  Isaac  L.,  50,  97. 
Fisk,  Clinton  B.,  281. 
Fisk,  James,  Jr.,  15. 
Fitzgerald,  Julius  C,  100, 112, 114. 
Flynn,  Thomas,  198,  203,  208,  367,  394,  441, 

445,  450,  460. 
Ford,  Bernard  J.,  450,  462. 
Foreman  (Assemblyman),  59. 
Forker,  Samuel  C,  51. 
Forman  (Assemblyman),  209. 
Fort,  J.  Frank,  253,  323. 
Foster,  John  Y.,  130,  179,  287,  322. 
Fowler  (Senator),  395. 
Francois,  Judson  C.,  302. 
Freeman  (Assemblymau),  209. 
Frelinghuysen,  Frederick  T.,  28,  72,  123, 

127,  129,  181,  254. 
French  (Assemblyman),  114. 
French,  Levi,  25. 
French,  Wm.  H.,  372. 
Fuller,  Charles  W.,  286. 
Fuller,  W.J.  A.,  223. 

G. 

Gaddis,  ElishaB.,254. 

Gallagher  (Assemblyman),  286. 

Gardner,  John  J.,  119,  180,  196,  202,  215,  287, 

301,  329,  395. 
Garretson,  A.  Q.,  330,  343. 
Garrettson,  John  T.,  218. 
Gassert,  Frederick,  335. 
Gaston  (Assemblyman),  198,  268. 
Gibbon, ,  230. 


496 


PAGE  REFERENCES  TO  NAME&. 


Gibbons, ,  30,  66. 

Gilchrist,  Robert,  97, 109,  110,  127,  215. 

Gill  (Assemblyman),  208. 

Gill,  William  H.,  100, 108, 114. 

Glaspell  (Assemblyman),  446. 

Gledhill  (Assemblyman),  394,  416. 

Glorieux  (Assemblyman),  394. 

Glover,  Rev.  Charles  P.,  388. 

Goble,  Jonathan,  114,  286. 

Goddard,  Frederick,  335. 

Gomer  (Assemblyman),  138. 

Goodwin  (Assemblyman),  209. 

Gopsill,  James,  74. 

Gordon  (Assemblyman),  114. 

Gordon,  Leonard  J  ,  335,  336. 

Gourley,  William  B.,  424. 

Graham,  John  A.,  310,  470. 

Grant,  General  U.  S.,  102. 

Grant,  William  H.,  255. 

Gray,  George  R.,  171,  363. 

Green,  Ashbel,  128, 129, 149. 

Green,  Edward  T.,  349. 

Green,  Robert  S.,  97,  256,  293,  355,  374. 

Gregory  (Commissioner),  89. 

Gregory,  Dudley  S.,  11,  68,  97. 

Grey,  Samuel,  26,  97,  472. 

Grosscup,  Charles  C,  25. 

Griggs,  John  W.,  131,  136,  209,  216,  229,  233, 

243,  252,  271,  274,  284,  287,  461,  464,  472. 
Grubb,  E.  Burd,  321,  427,  450. 
Gummere,  Barker,  119,  235,  464. 
Gummere,  William  S.,  242. 
Gurney  (Assemblyman),  88. 

H. 

Haggerty,  Daniel  W.,  361,  394. 

Haight,  Charles  B.,  38,  259. 

Haines,  George  T.,  209,  266. 

Haines,  Joseph  H.,  287. 

Hains,  Rev.  D.  B.,  388. 

Halsey  (Assemblyman),  114. 

Halsey,  George  A.,  102,  129,  1*5,  181,  253, 

271,  301,  322. 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  10,  91. 
Hamilton,  Henry  M.,  27,  52. 
Hancock,  William  S.,  471. 
Hannon,  Thomas  J.,  133. 
Haasell  (Assemblyman),  286. 
Hardenbergh,  A.  A.,  133, 161, 172,  213,  419. 
Hardin  John  R.,  361,  367,  394. 
Harrington  (Assemblyman),  286. 
Harrigan,  William,  208,  229,  236,  254,  288, 

440,  445. 
Harris,  Alexander  W.,  133, 
Havens  (Senator),  61,  90, 197. 
Hawkins,  Thomas  H.,  268,  271,  272,  275. 
Hayes,  Rutherford  B.,  128. 
Haynes,  Joseph  E.,  361, 


Hays,  James  L  ,  372 
Heany  (Assemblyman),  394. 
Hendrickson  (Assemblyman),  114. 
Hendrickson,  Charles  T.,  61,  108, 115,  156>. 

213,  259. 
Henry,  David,  114. 
Henry  (Doctor),  440,  445. 
Henry,  Thomas  S.,  113,  114. 
Heppenheimer,  Otto,  317. 
Heppenheimer,  William  C,  282,  286,  302;_ 

327,  362,  381. 
Herring,  H.  C,  114. 
Herring,  Richard  M.,  114. 
Hewitt,  Abram  S.,  52. 
Hewitt  (Senator),  50,  61,  90. 
Higgins,  A.  A.,  286,  302. 
Higgins,  G.  H.,  286. 
HinchlifTe,  John,  364,  395,  424,  448. 
Hill  (Assemblyman),  136. 
Hill,  Charles  E.,  272,  286. 
Hill,  David  B.,  408. 
Hill,  John,  29,  115,  137,  214. 
Hill,  William,  207,  208. 
Hires,  George,  196. 
Hobart,  Garret  A.,  54,  98,  136,  162,  166,  177,. 

179,  180,  196,  203,  215,  218,  271,  324,  461. 
Hoey,  James,  68. 
Hoffman,  Albert,  219,  343. 
Hoifman,  Albert  D.,  447. 
Hoflfman  (Assemblyman),  209, 391. 
Hoffman,  John  T.,  156. 
Hoffman,  William  T.,  164,  242,  298,  329. 
Holmes  (Assemblyman),  446. 
Holt  (Assemblyman),  446. 
Holt,  John  I.,  469. 
Honce  (Assemblyman),  394,  441. 
Hoover,  Eliphalet,  286,  302. 
Hope,  Col.  A.  D.,  29. 
Hopkins  (Senator),  62,  90, 115. 
Hopper,  John,  100,  115, 149,  162,  163,  261. 
Homblower  (Assemblyman),  89. 
Howell,  George  P.,  126. 
Howell,  James  E.,  131, 136. 
Howey,  Benjamin  F.,  263. 

Hoxsey, ,  29. 

Hubbell,  A.  S.,  98. 

Hudspeth,  Robert  S.,  246,  273,  300,  302,  312» 

317,  395. 
Hugg  (Judge),  385. 
Hughes,  Frank,  387,  388. 
Hunt,  Holloway  W.,  173. 
Hunt,  J.  Daggett,  37,  43,  54. 
Hutchin.son,  Barton  B.,  391,  445,  446. 
Hutchinson,  Robert  C,  208,  286. 

I. 

Irick  (Senator),  62,  90. 


PAGE  REFERENCES  TO  NAMES. 


497 


Jackson,  John  P.,  162. 
Jackson,  Rev.  J.  C,  388. 
Jackson,  Schuyler  B.,  158. 
Jackson,  William,  55. 
Jackson,  WiDiam  H.,  237. 
Jamison,  Charles,  130. 
Jaquette,  Charles,  388. 
Jarrard,  Levi  D.,  48,  62,  90, 115. 
Jeffery,  Oscar,  293. 
Jenkins,  George,  208. 
Jenkinson,  George  B.,  254. 
Jernee,  William  R.,  203,  209. 
Jewett  (Assemblyman),  255. 
Johnson,  John  T.,  69. 
Johnson,  John  T.,  399. 
Jolly,  Isaac  B. ,  55. 
Jones,  J.  Weyman,  102. 
Jones,  Josiah,  265,  286. 
Jordan,  Thomas  D.,  161. 

K. 

Kalisch,  Leonard,  302,  894. 

Kalisch,  Samuel,  453. 

Kane,  Daniel  M.,  302,  353. 

Kays,  Thomas,  276. 

Kays,  William  H.,  267,  286. 

Kean,  John,  Jr.,  256,  321,  427,  461. 

Kearns,  William  J.,  440,  415. 

Kearny,  Gen.  Phil.,  135. 

Keasbey,  Edward  Q.,  233,  253. 

Kellum,  L.  H.,  450. 

Kelly,  H.  A.,  445. 

Kelly,  John,  156. 

Kelly,  Joseph  T.,  203,  208. 

Kelly,  T.  M.,  440,  445, 

Kelsey,  Henry  C,  30,  32,  145,  158,  169,  177, 

180,  202,  255,  262. 
Kempshall  (Rev  ),  387,  388,  450. 
Kenny  (Judge),  343. 
Keracher,  William  S.,  242. 
Kerr,  David,  142. 

Ketcham,  George  H.,  394,  462,  464,  467. 
Keys,  James,  302. 
Keys  (Senator),  448. 
Kilpatrick,  Judson,  29,  153,  164. 
Kingman,  Frederick,  63. 
Kinnard,  Hugh,  114. 
Kinney  (Assemblyman),  272. 
Kirk,  William  H.,  Ill,  114, 117,  136. 
Kirkbride  (Captain),  322. 
Klotz,  Jacob,  302. 
Klotz,  Samuel,  413. 
Knapp,  Manning  M,,  336,  386,  416. 
Knight,  E.  C,  52. 
Knowles,  Rev.  J.  H.,  293,  442. 
Krueger,  Gottfried,  129,  132,  356,  365. 
Kyte  (Assemblyman),  446. 


Lake  (Assemblyman),  209. 

Landis,  Charles  K.,  52. 

Lane  (Lieutenant),  269. 

Lane,  Thomas  F.,  392,  394,  437,  446, 

Langdon,  Prof.  T.  M.,  451. 

Lanning  (Assemblyman),  445. 

Lanning,  William  M.,  450. 

Large,  George  H.,  114  285,  322,  452'. 

Larrison  (Assemblyman),  209. 

Lathrop,  Francis  S.,  30,  70,  74,  77,  164,  20S 

211. 
Lawless  (Assemblyman),  394,  440,  445. 
Lawrence,  David  W.,  197,  309. 
Lawrence,  Otto,  335. 
Lawrence  (Senator),  196. 
Leaming  (Senator),  115,  286. 
Leavitt  (Assemblyman),  286. 
Lee  (Assemblyman),  59. 
Lee,  Benjamiu  F.,  38,  43,  154,  262,  357. 
Leggett  (City  Treasurer),  161. 
Lehlbach,  Herman,  229,  365. 
Lentz,  Carl,  263. 
Leonard  (Assemblyman),  136. 
Letts,  William,  282,  286,  335. 
Lewis  (Assemblyman),  209. 
Lewis,  Henry,  27. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  40. 
Lindabury,  R.  V.,  442,  450,  472, 
Linn,  John,  72. 

Lippincott,  Job  H.,  342,  343,  417,  420,  438. 
Lippincott,  Rev.  B.  C,  288. 
Little,  Henry  S.,  22,  30,  33,  68,  75, 145, 157, 

158,  169,  202,  211,  222,  255,  262. 
Little,  Theodore,  29. 
Livingston,  Alfred  S.,  27. 
Livingston,  John  W.,  370. 
Livingston,  William,  370. 
Locke,  Joseph,  341. 
Love,  James  H.,  3C6. 
Low  (Assemblyman),  286. 
Lozier  (Assemblyman),  286. 
Luf  burrow,  George  H.,  286. 
Ludlam  (Assemblyman),  209,  286. 
Ludlow,  George  C,  118,  170,  178,  196,  202,. 

229,  274. 
Lydecker  (Senator),  62. 
Lyon,  Samuel  S.,  286. 

M. 

Mackay,  Elias  J.,  133. 
MacKenzie,  George  R.,  159. 
Macknet,  Theodore,  54,  253. 
Madden  (Senator),  115. 
Magee  (Assemblyman),  114. 
Magie,  William  J.,  136,  162,  163. 
Magner  (Assemblyman),  394. 
Magowan,  Frank  A.,  321,  426. 


32 


498 


PAGE  REFERENCES  TO  NAMES. 


Mallon,  John,  302. 

Malloy,  Franklin  J.,  27. 

Marcy  (Doctor),  223. 

Marks,  Charles,  335. 

Marlatt  (Assemblyman),  286. 

Marsh,  Elston,  29. 

Marsh,  Frederick  A.,  302,  395,  448. 

Martin,  A.  F.  R.,  247,  301. 

Martin  (Commissioner),  89. 

Martin,  Wimam  H  ,  197,  286,  302,  395,  448, 

463. 
Matthews,  John,  286. 
Matthiessen  &  Wiechers,  74. 
Matlack  (Assemblyman),  446. 
McAdoo,  William,  173,  195,  197,  213,  219. 
McAllister,  Rev.  N.,  388. 
McAnerney,  John  R  ,  172. 
McBride,  Charles  C,  387,  388,  450. 
McBride,  John  A.,  267,  287. 
McCarter,  Thomas  N.,29,  74,  387,  399,  472. 
McClellan,  George  B.,  105, 150, 159, 162, 163, 

223. 
McDermit,  Frank  M.,  269,  286,  302. 
McDermott,  Allan  L.,  161,  167,  195,  213,  237, 

242,  258,  292,  324,  352,  356,  370,  412,  421, 

429,  432,  436,  472. 
McDermott,  Hugh  F.,  167. 
McDonald,  Edward  F.,  108,  113,  114,  172, 

327,  329,  412,  424. 
McDonald,  Terrence  J.,  134,  179,  269. 
McDonnell  (Assemblyman),  114. 
McGeorge,  Wallace,  293. 
McGill,  Alexander  T.,  100, 108,  111,  298,  352, 

389,  397. 
McGowan  (Assemblyman),  286. 
McGregor,  John,  148,  261. 
McGuire,  Owen,  335. 
McKean,  Thomas  S.,  119. 
McLaughlin,  Dennis,  193,  203,  208,  305,  356, 

361,  384. 
McLaughlin,  Edward  T.,  273. 
McMahon,  Martin  T.,  156. 
McMichael,  William  P.,  76,  105. 
McMickle  (Senator),  395,  448. 
McXulty  (Rev.  Dean),  388,  450,  451. 
McPherson,  John  R.,  48,  61,  62, 100, 109, 121, 

124,  130,  163,  202,  213,  256,  292,  29J,  300, 

301,  411,  413,  417,  420. 
McPhilUps,  John  J.,  351. 
Meany,  Edward  P.,  381. 
Meeker  (Assemblyman),  286. 
Meeser,  Rev.  S.  B.,  387,  388. 
Meriam,  Rev.  C.  L  ,  388. 
Merritt,  D.  F.,  288. 
Merritt  (Senator),  197. 
Miller,  Ezra,  235. 
Miller,  James  L.,  287. 
Miller,  James  W.,  254. 


Miller  (Senator),  395,  448. 
Mills  (Assemblyman),  208. 
MoflFet,  Henry,  108,  114. 
Moore,  Charles  B.,  156. 
Moore  (Senator),  62,  90. 
Morrow,  Samuel,  100,  108,  114,  137. 
Morrow,  William  H.,  275. 
Mott,  Gershom,  128, 156. 
Mott,  Wilbur  A.,  467. 
Moylan  (Assemblyman),  394. 
Mulvey  (Assemblyman),  286. 
Murphey,  Thomas,  446. 
Murphy  (Assemblyman),  208. 
Murphy,  Benjamin  F.,  91 
Murphy,  Franklin,  255,  427,  461. 
Murphy,  Holmes  W.,  119. 
Murrell,  Col.  William,  469. 
Mutchler,  Samuel  B.,  286,  302. 

N. 
Naar,  Joseph  L„  173.  217. 
Nash  (Assemblyman),  362,  394. 
Nathan,  Michael  T.,  367,  463,  467. 
Naughright,  William  S.,  302. 
Neider,  John,  361,  394. 
Neighbour,  James  H.,  208,  229,  233. 
Nevius,  Henry  M  ,  287,  301,  327,  329,  426. 
Nevius,  Russel  H.,  11. 
Newell,  Dr.  William  A.,  153. 
Newell,  William,  287,  302. 
Newkirk  (Senator),  62,  115. 
Nichols  Isaac  T.,  136,  197. 
Niece  (Assemblyman),  394. 
Niles,  Nathaniel,  56,  78. 
Nixon  (Assemblyman),  286. 
Noonan,  Joseph  M.,  345. 
Noonan,  Thomas  F.,  247, 
Norton,  James  F.,  286,  302,  317 

O. 

O'Brien,  Thomas  G.,  446. 
O'Brien,  Thomas  J.,  121. 
O'Connor,  Thomas,  202,  206. 
O'Neill,  Patrick  H.,  302,  305,  315,  317. 
Ogden,  Aaron,  11,  66. 
Olden  (Assemblyman),  286. 
Olvaney,  Dennis,  440,  446. 
Otterson,  Henry,  335. 
Owen  (Assemblyman),  114. 


Packer  (Assemblyman),  394,  446. 

Pancoast  (Assemblyman),  136. 

Parker,  Cortlandt,  28,  29,  51,  54,  72,  129,  181, 

230,  253,  275. 
Parker,  J.,  394,  446. 
Parker,  Joel,  36,  43,  56,  89,  100,  105,  110, 168, 

265,  407. 


PAGE  REFERENCES  TO  NAMES. 


499 


Parker,  R.  Wayne,  253. 
Parker,  William  T.,  386. 
Parrott  (Senator),  198. 

Parsons .  223. 

Parsons  (Assemblyman),  208. 

Patterson,  Austin,  108. 

Patterson,  George  W.,  54,  88,  89,  100,  112, 

114. 
Patterson,  William  F.,  302. 
Paxton,  Elijah,  196. 
Payne  (Assemblyman),  114, 136. 
Peck,  James,  271,  286. 
Peddie,  Thomas  B.,  254. 
Peloubet,  David  A.,  191. 
Pennington  (Governor),  11. 
Perkins,  George  F.,  318. 
Perkins,  Mitchell  B.,  361,  395,  448. 
Perry,  Nehemiah,  37. 
Peshall.  Charles  J.,  349. 
Pfeiflfer,  George,  Jr.,  287,  302. 
Phelps,  Samuel,  388. 
Phelps,  William  Walter,  52,  133,  154,  214, 

279. 
Pidcock,  James  N.,  156,  257,  356. 
Pierson  (Assemblyman),  136. 
Pierson,  Judson,  450. 
Pilger  (Policeman),  269. 
Pintard,  William,  245. 
Pitney,  John  R.,  286. 
Plume,  Joseph  W.,  370. 
Plympton  (Assemblyman),  59. 
Poland,  Addison  B.,  80. 
Pollock  (Assemblyman),  356. 
Pope  (Assemblyman),  114. 
Post  (Assemblyman),  394. 
Potts,  Edward  B.,  286,  302. 
Potter,  Erastus  E.,  274. 
Potter,  Henry  A.,  324. 
Potter,  William  E.,  275. 
Potts,  J.  Herbert,  269,  356,  367,  393,  394,  469. 
Potts,  Frederic  A.,  100,  154,  163,  215,  275. 
Potts,  Joseph  C,  63. 
Potts  (Senator),  102, 115. 
Prall,  William,  229. 
Price,  E.  Livingston,  357,  364,  421,  452. 
Price,  Rodman  M.,  63. 
Pritchard  (Commissioner),  89. 
Probasco  (Assemblyman),  25. 

R. 

Rabe,  Rudolph  F.,  114, 117, 131,  321. 
Ramsay,  John,  335. 
Randolph,  Bennington  F.,  141. 
Randolph,  Theodore  F.,  21,  29,  32,  76,  108, 

123,  127,  145,  146,  223. 
Rankin,  William  B.,  321. 
Ransom,  Stephen  B.,  230,  354. 
Reading,  Richard  B.,  272,  461. 


Reardon  (Assemblyman),  59. 

Reick,  William  C,  218. 

Reid,  Whitelaw,  431. 

Renwick,  E.  S.,  215. 

Revere,  Paul,  425. 

Reynolds,  A.  M.,  238. 

Reynolds,  John,  388. 

Rich,  Augustus,  208. 

Richards,  George,  51,  55. 

Riddle,  William,  447. 

Riegel,  Jacob,  27. 

Righter,  William  A.,  148. 

Riker,  Adrian,  286. 

Riley,  Millard  F.,  286. 

Robbins,  Wright,  149,  209. 

Robertson  (Assemblyman),  195. 

Robeson,  George  M.,  110,  133,  164, 179, 181, 

201,  230,  276. 
Robinson,  John,  156. 
Roe,  Joseph  B.,  287,  329,  388. 
Roebling  (Assemblyman),  446. 
Rogers,  M.  A.,  286, 395, 448,  458,  462,  467,  472. 
Ross  (Assemblyman),  209,  394,  446. 
Ross,  Miles,  147,  256,  276,  356,  392,  396,  413, 

435. 
Rowe,  Norman  L.,  .343. 
Rue,  John  D.,  131,  287,  395. 
Runyon,  Albert  L.,  136. 
Runyon,  Theodore,  38,  213,  372. 


Salinger,  Max,  446. 

Sanders,  E.  H.,  72. 

Savage,  Edward  S.,  229. 

Schalk.  Herman,  88. 

Scheel,  Edward,  156. 

Schenck,  A.  V.,  209,  229,  252. 

Schmelz,  Joseph,  286,  302. 

Schroth,  John,  302. 

Schultze  (Assemblyman),  59, 136. 

Schultze  (Senator),  115, 136. 

Scott  (Assemblyman),  2C8. 

Scott  (President  of  Rutgers),  451. 

Seovel,  Alden  C,  131. 

Scovill  (Assemblyman),  114. 

Scudder,  Edward  W.,  438. 

Scudder,  Isaac  W.,  56,  276. 

Scudder,  Rev.  John  L.,  386. 

Seide,  Augustus  A.,  299. 

Sewell,  William  J.,  61,  62,  110,  115,  138,  143, 

155,  158,  164,  180,  215,  230,  272,  274,  284, 

301,  437,  461,  462,  464. 
Shann  (A.ssemblyman),  114. 
Shannon  (Assemblj-man),  208. 
Sharp,  John  L.,  44. 
Sharp,  Williams.,  329. 

Shay, ,  221. 

Sheeran,  Patrick,  114, 179. 


500 


PAGE  REFERENCES  TO  NAMES. 


Sheiffelin,  John  H.,  Jr.,  335. 

Sheldon  (Assemblyman),  208. 

Shepherd  (Senator),  62,  90. 

Sheppard  (Assemblyman),  445. 

Shields  (Assemblyman),  208. 

Shinn,  Joseph  H.,  193, 197. 

Shippen,  William  W.,  128,  148,  171. 

Short,  E.  Frank,  286,  294. 

Siedler,  Charles,  147,  416. 

Skellenger  (Assemblyman),  114. 

Skirm,  William  H.,  447,  448,  466. 

Smalley,  Andrew  A.,  88. 

Smalley  (Assemblyman),  209,  286. 

Smith,  Adam  C,  301. 

Smith,  Andrew  J.,  63, 100. 

Smith  (Assemblyman),  286,  394. 

Smith,  Charles,  27. 

Smith,  Hezekiah  B.,  115,  202,  276. 

Smith,  J.  F.,  394,  440. 

Smith,  James,  Jr.,  254,  357,  365,  409,  413, 

421,  434. 
Smith,  Michael,  335. 
Smith,  Peter  D.,  302,  314. 
Smith  (Senator),  448. 
Smith,  Thomas,  394. 
Snyder,  Edward  H.,  355,  394. 
Spencer,  Bird  W.,  381. 
Stafford  (Assemblyman),  209,  446. 
Stainsby,  William,  197. 
Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  40. 
Steele,  Dudley  S.,  156,  369. 
Steljes,  Martin,  207,  208. 
Stevens,  Edwin  A.,  374. 
Stevens,  Frederic  W.,  235,  249,  397,  472. 
Stevens,  Frederick  A.,  78. 
Stevens,  John,  76. 
Stevens,  John  G.,22. 
Stiles,  William  A.,  202. 
Stilsing,  Samuel  W,,  190. 
Stanger  (Assemblyman),  416. 
Stockton,  John  P.,  106,  128,  146,  148,  170, 

203,  242,  397,  468,  472. 
Stockton,  Robert  F,,  22,  137,  230. 
Stokes,  Edward  C,  394,  447,  448,  450,  464, 

467. 
Stone  (Senator),  61, 115. 
Stoney,  Alfred  B.,  2C9,  227. 
Storrs  (Assemblyman),  460. 
Storrs,  Rev.  Dr.,  451. 
Stout  (Assemblyman),  440,  445. 
Strahan  (Assemblyman),  394,  440. 
Stratton,  John  L.  N.,  70. 
Strimple  (Assemblyman),  394. 
Stryker,  William  S.,  381. 
Studer,  A.  C,  446, 
Stuhr,  William  8.,  328. 
Sutphen  (Assemblyman),  114. 
Swain,  George' B.,  471. 


Swartwout  (Assemblyman),  394,  445. 
Swayze,  J.  L  ,  97,  114. 
Sweeney  (Sergeant  of  Police),  269. 
Swing  (Assemblyman),  114. 

T. 

Tahen  (Assemblyman),  394,  440,  446. 

Taussig,  Isaac  W.,  409. 

Taylor  (Assemblyman),  114, 136. 

Taylor,  John  W.,  22,  48,  50,  61,  89,  97,  106, 

115, 196,  215. 
Taylor,  Lewis  R.,  53. 
Taylor,  Noah  D.,  88. 
Teed  (Assemblyman),  114. 
Teese,  Frederick  H.,  146. 
Ten  Eyck,  John  C,  98. 
Tepper,  Otto,  335. 
Terhune,  Henry  S.,  448,  456. 
Thompson,  George,  173. 
Thompson,  Joseph,  98. 
Thompson,  Lewis  A.,  271,  287. 
Thompson,  S.  C,  387,  445,  464. 
Thompson,  William  J.,  357,  384,  435,  440. 
Thorne  (Senator),  115. 
Thurston,  Charles  B.,  10,  475. 
Throckmorton,  B.  W.,  54,  63. 
Throckmorton,  William  S  ,  267,  271,  274. 
Tilden,  M.,  135. 
Tine  (Assemblyman),  394. 
Toffey,  John  J.,  114,461. 
Torbett  (Assemblyman),  114. 
Torrey  (Senator),  19,  28. 
Tumilty,  James,  335. 
Tumulty,  Philip,  273,  394. 
Turk,  William,  370. 
Turley,  Henry,  266. 
Tuttle,  Socrates,  203. 
Traphageu,  Henry,  136,  147. 
Trier,  Reuben,  302. 
Trimmer,  Lawrence  H.,  286,  302. 
Troust,  Paul,  335. 
Trotter,  Thomas,  342, 

U. 

Ulrich  (Assemblyman),  286,  356,  394. 

Urner, ,  223. 

Utter  (Assemblyman),  446,  456. 

V. 

Vail,  Benjamin  A.,  131,  136,  196,  227,  228, 

236,  238. 
Valentine,  Caleb  H.,  25,  26,  37. 
Vanatta,  Jacob,  105,  128,  145. 
Van  Buren,  Gen.  Thomas,  29. 
Van  Bussum  (Assemblyman),  208. 
Van  Cleef  (Assemblyman),  114. 
Vanderbilt,  George  0.,  100, 106, 114,  213,  246. 
Van  Duyne,  Harrison,  136,  180. 


PAGE  REFERENCES  TO  NAMES. 


501 


Van  Hise  (Assemblyman),  136. 

Van  Renuselaer  (Assemblyman),  131. 

Van  Syckle,  Benjamin,  161, 

Van  Valen  (Judge)  450. 

Van  Vorst,  Cornelius,  11. 

Voorhees  (Assemblyman),  136. 

VooThees,  Foster  M.,  2i;6,  292,  353,  464,  467. 

Voorhees  John  T.,  450. 

Voorhees,  J.  V.,  450. 

Voorhees,  Newton  W.,  106,  114. 

Voorhis,  Charles  H  ,  153,  276. 

Vroom,  Garret  D.  W.,  128. 

W. 

Wade,  John,  335. 

Walbaum, ,  384. 

Walsh,  Cornelius,  28,  40. 

Walter,  Frederick,  266. 

AVanser,  P.  Farmer,  208,  318.  370,  429. 

Ward,  Frank,  54,  59. 

Ward,  John  C  ,  458. 

Ward,  Marcus  L.,  29,  38. 

Warne  (Assemblyman),  394,  440,  446. 

Warrington  (Assemblyman),  114. 

Warthman,  Samuel,  25,  26. 

Weaver  (Assemblyman),  209. 

Weidenmayer,  George  W.,  291,  302. 

Welsh,  Ashbel,  22. 

Werts,  George  T.,  287,  292,  300,  302,  326,  333, 

353,  355,  416,  420,  438,  463,  468,  474. 
Wescott,  Walter  C,  335. 
West,  Jacob,  286. 
Whitaker,  Jonathan,  213. 
White,  A.  Harry,  361. 
White,  Henrys.,  352. 
Whitehead,  Rev.  J.  H.,  388. 
Whitney,  William  C  ,  156,  409. 
Whittaker  (Assemblyman),  59. 
Wigger  (Bishop),  121. 
Wiggins,  John  R.,  299. 


Wightman  (Assemblyman),  136. 
Wil lets  (Senator),  115. 
Williams  (Senator),  50,  61,  90. 
Williams,  William  R.,  322. 
Williamson,  Benjamin,  148,  242,  399. 
Williamson,  Isaac  H.,  11. 
Wilson,  Arthur,  199,  202. 
Wilson  (Assemblyman),  394,  446. 
Wilson  Henry  B.,  108,  114. 
Wilson,  Samuel  K.,  27,  53,  88. 
Winant  (Assemblyman),  138. 
Winfield,  Charles  H.,  149,  336,  425. 
Winton,  Eben,  22. 
Winton,  Henry  D.,  395. 
Wolverton,  Chester  A.,  268. 
Wood  (Senator),  61,  115. 
Woodruff,  Robert  S.,  114, 116,  209. 
Woolsey  (Assemblyman),  446. 
Woolverton,  Rev.  H.,  388. 
Wortendyke,  John  R.,  72. 
Wortendyke  (Senator),  197,  209. 
Wright  (Assemblyman),  394,  446. 
Wright,  William,  254. 
Wyckoff  (Assemblyman),  114. 
Wyckoff,  Martin,  287,  292,  302. 

Y. 

Yard,  James  S.,  288,  293,  387,  388,  450. 
Youmans  (Assemblyman),  114. 
Young  (Assemblyman),  209,  275. 
Young,  Edward  F.  C,  227,  417,  425,  436, 
Young,  Philip,  268,  272. 
Youngblood,  James  C,  114, 196,  207,  228. 

Z. 

Zabriskle,  A.  O.,  57,  68,  98. 
Zeller  (Assemblyman),  394,  440,  445. 
Zeluff  (Assemblyman),  114. 
Zulick,  Meyer,  150,  219. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  LOS  ANGELES 

THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


OEC  2  2  ^955 

JAN  9 -195^ 


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DEC  2     1SB4 


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AA    001178  448    5 


